Thirteen Rooms
by JudasFm
Summary: A simple shopping trip goes hideously wrong and Face will need every ounce of courage and experience he can muster just to stay alive. He finds a couple of unexpected allies, but one of them doesn't seem to be all she appears...
1. Desert Delirium

**Well, the review vote and poll result (and emails) were unanimous; everyone wanted the psychological/supernatural/horror story, so you got it ;-) This is my first time writing in this genre (I'm a sci-fi/fantasy specialist) so bear with me :-)**

**The A-Team are not mine. If they were, Season Five would never have happened, no matter how much I like Robert Vaughn ;-)**

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><p>Murdock told me a story one time. Actually, he told me about two dozen. My fault for buying him <em>101 Tales of the World<em>, I guess, but this one stuck in my mind for some reason.

One day, a squirrel lay down for a nap at the edge of the desert, only to be picked up by a vulture and carried off. The squirrel woke up and started chattering indignantly: "How dare you try to eat me? I'm not dead!"

The vulture was so surprised he opened his beak and dropped the squirrel, then flew away. The squirrel sat up and looked around him, but he couldn't see which way to go. There was nothing but sand.

He started to walk, stopped, changed direction and then started again. Eventually he collapsed onto his side and lay there dying of heat and thirst, and the vulture came back, took one look at him and remarked, "I thought you said you weren't dead."

The squirrel tried to reply but couldn't, so the vulture ate him.

Moral of the story: anyone who tries to cross the desert without proper training and planning is dead. They just don't always know it yet.

I was the squirrel. The vulture hadn't showed up yet (did they even have vultures here?) but I got the feeling he wouldn't be far behind me.

How long had I been walking?

I had no idea, only that I desperately wanted to rest and couldn't. If I stopped, I doubted I'd be able to start again. My head was pounding so hard I thought it was about to split open, and my life had turned into a slow nightmare that consisted of dragging one blistered, sunburned foot in front of the other.

I curled my fingers a little tighter around the spark plug in my hand, squeezing until the edges dug into my skin. The pain woke me up a little, just like it had the last who-knew-how-many times I'd done it.

I could make out the lights of a small town in the distance. I'd been making them out for the last two days. Up until a few hours ago, they hadn't seemed to be getting any closer no matter how much I walked, but now...yeah, now I was definitely nearer.

I couldn't stop. No matter what happened, I couldn't stop. I also couldn't think; my mind seemed to be curling in on itself. My thoughts were fragmented, disjointed, and, if I voiced any of them out loud, would probably get me committed in a matter of seconds, but one thing kept beating out over and over again: get to the town.

I reached into my pocket and fingered the small piece of rough cloth there. That was the other thing. I'd gone through hell to bring this to Hannibal. After everything I'd survived so far, I wasn't about to let a little thing like a desert kill me.

Hannibal needed this. I could die of dehydration and/or heatstroke on my own time; right now I had a mission to complete.

So what else did I have? A torn scrap of fabric about one inch by two, and a spark plug. No baseball. Decker had the baseball. No water bottle either. I'd drunk that. The water. Water. Yes, water. Water would be good. I felt my throat move convulsively as I imagined drinking it down. Cold water. No, not cold; cool. Maybe Hannibal would give me a drink if I gave him the costume. If I could find him, of course.

I croaked something that was supposed to be a groan. I really was losing my grip on reality. Too much more of this and I'd end up like Murdock.

I don't remember much more about that nightmare of a journey, to tell you the truth. The pain grew worse – I had a sunburn like you would not believe – and sand had got into my cuts and burns. I got thirstier. My headache tripled.

And yet...somehow, I made it into the town just as the sun was setting. A battered, sand-encrusted sign proclaimed, 'Welcome to Trake, Arizona! Pop. 384'.

Okay, so maybe 'town' was something of an exaggeration. I didn't really care, though, since I caught sight of a certain object a few blocks down.

A call box. Was there ever a more wonderful, awe-inspiring invention?

People eyed me warily, but most of them stayed clear as I made a beeline for that most magnificent of call boxes...a beeline that took me ten minutes. I felt like a zombie as I shuffled my way toward it, and I probably looked like one as well.

Once I got there, habit made me fumble in my pockets for loose change, even though I knew in the back of my mind that I didn't have any. Looked like I'd have to call collect. It took me several seconds to drag the number out of my fevered mind, but I managed at last.

I don't remember making the call, but I must have because the next thing I was really aware of was Hannibal's voice coming down the receiver at me. It was fuzzy and distorted, as though I had my head underwater, but it was Hannibal and I had never been so thankful to hear his voice in my entire life.

"Hannibal! Hannibal, thank god I've got through to you!" If there hadn't been people watching – a barefoot, extremely sunburned and rather battered guy wearing nothing but a torn pair of army fatigues does attract a little attention – I think I might have gone down on my knees and sobbed with relief. Maybe I'd do that anyway.

"Face?" Hannibal sounded just as relieved to hear my voice as I was to hear his. "Where the hell are you, kid? I've been worried sick."

Dimly I heard Murdock's voice in the background. "Ask him if he's been eatin' his greens!"

Hannibal didn't bother to repeat this; instead he said, "What happened? Where are you?"

"I'm in a place called Trake, Arizona."

"_Arizona_?"

"Arizona?" Murdock repeated in the background.

I tightened my hold on the receiver. "Hannibal, you have to come get me. I can't find any car rentals and I don't have any money anyway."

"C'mon Face. Are you seriously telling me you can't put together a scam?"

I ran a trembling hand through my hair. My nerves were completely shot to hell. I doubted I could put together a two piece jigsaw puzzle, let alone a scam.

"Just come get me?" I didn't much like the pleading sound in my own voice, but I couldn't do anything about it.

Maybe that was what convinced him; there was a small pause, then he said, "Alright, kid. Alright. We'll try and find you. You just hang in there a little longer, okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." I ran a hand over dry and chapped lips, then glanced over my shoulder. "Just please hurry!"

I fumbled the receiver, dropped it and then managed to pick it up and replace it. I knew it would take them at least five or six hours to get down to me, even at the speed the Team usually drives, but still...every time I saw headlights on the road, I couldn't help feeling a thrill of anticipation that quickly gave way to fear every time I realized it wasn't the van, and relief when it sped on past me.

There was nothing I could do except stand and wait. The shade of the buildings offered a little relief until the sun had set completely, but there was nothing else on offer. The only shop was closed for the day and I couldn't exactly go around knocking on strangers' doors and asking if I could wait inside for a few hours. My one consolation was that at least I was safe from MPs; I doubted anyone would connect the chronically sunburned and battered guy leaning against a wall with that suave, handsome lieutenant on the Wanted poster. And even if they did, Decker and I had an understanding.

I had no idea how late it was, but the people who had been out on the streets had gone inside and I was dozing off when something screeched to a halt underneath a streetlight and sounded the horn several times.

The van! The beautiful, wonderful van! I raced across the road and leaped inside, then darted across and sat down in my usual seat in a dazzling display of balance and agility.

At least, that was the plan. The reality was that my legs finally decided that enough was enough and went on strike halfway through. End result: I stumbled, tripped and fell flat on my face, landing half in and half out. Someone – Murdock – grabbed me under the armpits and pulled me inside. I heard the door slam shut behind us and felt a chill shoot through me, followed by a shiver of relief.

"Face?" Hannibal. I tried to wave reassuringly. My hand flopped about like a dying fish for a few seconds and then gave up.

"Go! Go. Just...go! We have to get out of here right now!"

He didn't argue or insist on explanations, but just said, "BA!"

I felt the van shift into reverse. I didn't have the strength to stand or even crawl to one of the seats; all I could do was lie on the carpeted floor, quivering all over with exhaustion. I was still clutching the spark plug in one hand and I have a dim recollection of pulling away and snarling when a curious Murdock tried to see what I had in there. Even though I was in the van, even though I was safe, I still wasn't going to let go of it. That spark plug was my talisman, my charm, the only thing that had enabled me to survive the desert.

Somewhere in the thunderclouds of my fevered mind was a tiny part of me which protested that this was nuts, that I would have come out anyway, but I dismissed it. It was the spark plug. Having it had saved my life before – that wasn't delirium, it really had happened – and I was sure it had kept me going through the desert.

_Nice, Face. Let's see if you still think that once you're fully recovered._

I caught a glimpse of Hannibal's face, eyes dark with concern as he looked at me. Not just for my physical well-being; from his expression, he thought I'd sprung a hole in my bag of marbles.

Fair enough. I was starting to wonder about that myself.

"Hannibal." There was something I had to do. Something important. Something...in my pocket? Yes! That was it! I managed to reach into my pocket with my other hand, pull out the scrap of fabric there and hand it up to him. He took it, although the concerned look on his face deepened.

"Uh...thanks, Face."

"Hey Face, what the heck happened?"

"Leave him alone, BA." Hannibal's voice was slow and seemed to have dropped half a dozen octaves. "He's exhausted. He can tell us when he's had a chance to get some rest."

Rest. If there was a more wonderful word than rest, I didn't know what it was. I just wanted to lie there, to close my eyes and sleep for days. The carpet rasped harshly against my sunburn, but I didn't have the energy to move.

As I lay there, I felt myself start to shake. Delayed reaction to heat exhaustion, my tiny core of sanity informed me.

"Colonel!" Murdock's voice rang in my ears. "Colonel, you better stop! I think Faceman's pitchin' a fit!"

"NO!" Speaking so loudly tore at my throat, but I couldn't let them stop. We had to keep going. I wouldn't feel safe until I was back in LA.

Somehow I managed to summon enough discipline to get the shakes under control, although I could only do it by tensing every muscle in my body. I heard Murdock rooting around in the back of the van and then he came back with a blanket, which he placed over me. I was also dimly aware of his lifting my head up and sliding something soft and creaking underneath; his jacket.

_Murdock_... I didn't have the strength to thank him, but I didn't think I had to. The guy always seemed to know what I was thinking.

I felt a warmth course through me and as the van accelerated down the road, leaving Trake far behind, I began to hope that my ordeal was finally over.


	2. Back Home

I opened my eyes, blinking several times to try and bring the world into focus, or at least that part of the world I could see, which was basically a white ceiling.

I was in a bed, snuggled in amongst big, soft pillows and some nice warm blankets. I had a vague memory of Hannibal hauling me up some stairs – I'd know that smell of expensive cigar smoke and cologne anywhere – but after that it all got kinda blurry. I was surprised, and a little touched, to find out that Murdock had left me his jacket as well. I think I can count the number of times I've seen him without it on one hand. That time in the POW camp left him with a lot of scars on his arms and back; he's pretty self-conscious about them, even now.

"Face?"

I knew that voice. I couldn't quite remember who it belonged to, but I knew that I knew it.

"How you feeling, kid?"

'Half dead' was a good place to start in answering this question, I thought. I also felt warm, safe and like I could relax for the first time in ages (which was just as well considering my limbs felt like they'd been stuffed with sand) and my mind was better. The delirium was gone, although I still felt half out of it. Kinda like I had a bad head cold.

Somehow, I summoned enough strength to turn my head enough to see Hannibal – that was it; Hannibal! – sitting in an easy chair with a book. Slowly, I felt a grin spread across my face, a grin that split my parched lips but one I was powerless to stop.

"Hannibal. Oh man. You really have no idea how glad I am to see you." I winced as my voice rasped in my throat.

Hannibal placed the book down on the table – I tried to read the spine but couldn't make it out; my vision kept fluttering in and out of focus – and pushed a glass of water towards me.

"Here."

I stared at the drink, then shifted my eyes to Hannibal's amused expression.

"Lemme guess. Murdock?"

"How'd you know?"

"Call it a hunch." I used the paper umbrella to stir the three pink elephant ice cubes, then somehow managed to get close enough to slurp water into my mouth by means of the two crazy straws sticking out the top. Nothing on this earth had ever tasted so sweet and I bullied my hand into making a grab for the glass itself. Forget the straws; I wanted it all and I wanted it _now_.

"Easy. _Easy_." Reaching over, Hannibal pulled it away from me again. "You know better than that, Face; if you drink it straight down, all you're gonna do is throw it back up again."

I knew he was right, of course, but it was harder to convince my mouth and throat of that fact. The laws of drinking with grace and refinement shouldn't have to apply to a person who'd almost died of thirst.

"You know, you scared the living daylights outta me with that phone call, kid."

Phone call? What phone call? I didn't remember making any phone call to him.

Seeing my perplexity, Hannibal elaborated. "You know, from Trake, Arizona? Four days ago? You called collect, asked us to come pick you up."

"Four days?" I echoed. That...no. No, it wasn't possible. One day, sure. Maybe even two. But four?

"Yeah, you were pretty much out of it. I had to carry you from the van to here. You never so much as twitched. I managed to get you awake enough a couple times a day to pour some water down your throat, but that was it."

"Four days?" I said again, just in case repeating it would make it easier to believe. It didn't.

"Yeah. I was really starting to worry about you. If you hadn't woken up by tomorrow evening, I was going to get you to the hospital. BA and Murdock have been keeping an eye out for Decker, but so far there's been no sign of him."

Decker. There was something about that name that was important...something I had to tell Hannibal, but I couldn't remember what it was.

"Face...I don't want to push you if you're not up to it, but I need you to tell me what happened to you."

I grinned inanely. "Uh uh. No-o-o, no, no, no, Hannibal. No. You don't _need_ me to tell you; you _want_ me to tell you. You're just curious."

"What, about how I could send you out for Halloween costumes here in LA and have you vanish without a trace only to reappear a few days later in some one-horse town in Arizona? Yeah, Face, I am kinda curious about that. I mean, we both know your sense of direction isn't as good as mine, but still...that's what I call spectacularly lost."

My grin broadened and Hannibal grinned back before becoming serious again. Deadly serious.

"Face, if somebody did this to you, I want to know who."

I shrugged. "I don't know."

That wasn't a bluff, although I could see that Hannibal thought it was. I really had no idea who'd been behind it. I knew what people called him, but that was as far as it went.

"But someone did do it to you," Hannibal persisted.

"Ah...in a way."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Well, either they did or they didn't, kid."

"No. It was more like...they put me in a position where...Hannibal, I don't wanna talk about this right now."

To my surprise, he didn't protest this; instead he just nodded and said, "Okay. What about this?"

He pulled the piece of fabric out of his pocket and held it out.

I grinned again. "You still got it."

"Well, you seem to have gone through hell to get it to me, and you were pretty determined for me to take it back in the van, so I figured it must be important. I just have no idea what it is."

"That, Hannibal, is the Halloween costume you sent me out to get."

"I see." He examined the scrap of cloth again. About the only thing it could be used for was an eye patch. "Face...I know I said I didn't want anything too big or cumbersome, but this is ridiculous."

My grin broadened into a laugh that verged on hysteria. When Hannibal started looking concerned, I managed to stop it, although it was a struggle. It felt good to laugh, like turning a valve to ease pressure.

"Yeah, well, sorry. I had to use the rest of it for something else."

"What was that?"

That was the one question I'd been hoping he wouldn't ask. Hannibal has something of a knack for that.

"Can we add that to the list of Things I Don't Wanna Talk About?"

Again, he surprised me by saying, "Alright. But this is just a postponement, kid; we _are_ going to talk about them, so if you think I'm going to conveniently forget, you better think again."

I groaned. That guy knows me far too well.

"In the meantime," Hannibal added, "I picked up some stuff for that sunburn of yours. Think you can sit up a little more?"

Sit up? Man, if Hannibal had something to soothe the stiff inferno of my skin, I'd tap dance barefoot over broken glass for him.

I needed his help, of course – after the grueling procedure of taking a drink of water, my arms had joined my legs on strike – but once I was sitting upright, I managed to more or less stay upright.

"If you turn around, I'll do your back," Hannibal offered.

I turned obligingly, although rather slowly. Moving was agony; my muscles and ribs were screaming at me and I was so stiff with sunburn I thought I could hear my skin crackling and snapping every time I so much as twitched.

He touched my shoulder and the pain intensified, agony mixing with cool, blessed relief as Hannibal applied the salve. I knew him well enough to know he was being as gentle as he could, but gentle wasn't gentle enough and I winced.

"Sorry kid."

"It's okay." I tried very hard not to flinch again as he went over my ribs.

"You'll have to get those taped once the sunburn's gone down," he told me, then I felt him pause in his salving. "What happened to your arm?"

"Huh?" I lifted my arm and examined it. Bruised, sure, a couple cuts that I noticed someone – Hannibal, probably – had already cleaned for me, but nothing too serious.

"The other arm, kid." This in a _nice try_ tone, although it had been an honest mistake on my part.

I checked the other arm and came face to face with a patch of gauze I knew hid a chemical burn.

"Acid." I remembered that one only too well, not least because of Decker's little stunt with the baseball.

"_What_?"

Too late, I also remembered the promise I'd made to myself never to breathe a word about what had happened, especially not to Hannibal. Not because I didn't trust him – about the only person I might have trusted more was Murdock – but because I didn't think he'd believe me. Hell, I wasn't sure if _I_ believed me, and I _was_ me.

"Uh. Did I, uh, did I say acid? Slip of the tongue. What I meant was, um..." I could feel the words there in my mind, but somehow all lines of communication between my brain and my mouth seemed to have shorted out. "Uh...that is..."

He relented. "Alright, kid, alright. Don't hurt yourself. You can make up something to tell me later."

I glanced around. The room looked vaguely familiar, but my poor, battered mind couldn't quite place it.

"Where am I, anyway?"

"In my spare room. I wanted to keep an eye on you until you were fully recovered. Murdock was here until about two hours ago, when I ordered him out to the couch to get some rest. He made me promise to give you that glass of water though."

"And his jacket." I pulled the flight jacket out from under my head; there was something hard in the pockets that wasn't too comfortable to lie on. Like I said, I was kinda touched. Murdock and his flight jacket are like BA and his gold, or Hannibal and his cigars. Separate them at your own risk. Hannibal grinned. "Well, you didn't give him much choice on that one, Face. It was all I could do to persuade you to give the guy his hand back."

I cringed, already painting the worst, most humiliating picture in my mind that I could manage.

"I held his _hand_?"

"No, but when he put his jacket under you, he didn't quite manage to pull away in time." Hannibal's grin broadened. "You just rested that weary little head of yours on his wrist as well as his jacket."

I winced. I couldn't quite decide whether this was better or worse than holding hands, but I didn't much like either.

"Oh man. What'd Murdock do?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Murdock's Murdock, Face. What do you think he did? He just lay right on down next to you and didn't move until we were back in LA."

I winced again. I could easily imagine Murdock doing just that, but it didn't make me feel any better.

"And on the subject of sleep, Lieutenant, I think you need a lot more."

"Hannibal, I'm fine." Sleep was the last thing on my mind just then...well, alright, no it wasn't, but I didn't want to drop off again yet. My dreams hadn't been too good lately, and besides, I couldn't shake the irrational fear that the instant I closed my eyes, someone would grab hold of me and my nightmare would begin all over again. I didn't want to say any of that to Hannibal though, and so I settled for, "What if someone shows up?"

He gave me a long look that said he knew full well what had been passing through my mind.

"Face, anyone who wants to get you, whether it's an old girlfriend, Decker and his goons, or even the President of the United States, they're gonna have to come through me first."

That was Hannibal all over: loyal to the point of recklessness. Kinda like Murdock, only not always as sane. Sometimes he could be a little _too_ reckless and demanding, but I will say this for him; he never asked anything of us that he wasn't willing to do himself. Usually with a lot more enthusiasm, particularly with regards to Colonel Decker.

Thinking of that name suddenly brought something back to me with a burst of clarity and I acted on it before it could vanish again.

"Decker!"

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "No, Face. _Hannibal_. Remember?"

"What? No! No, it's...it's...Hannibal, would you say Decker is a guy who keeps his promises?"

I could see the confusion bubbling around inside him at my question, but he answered it anyway.

"Well, if you're enough of a miracle worker to pin him down into making one, then yeah. He's honest."

I nodded. "Okay. Okay, good. Then we got until January before he starts hunting us again. So long as we keep our heads down a little, we can relax."

Hannibal sat back in his chair, staring at me. "Face, you're not making any sense. You didn't make much sense while you were talking in your sleep either. I guess that's only to be expected, but now..."

"I talked in my sleep?" I stared at Hannibal. There was nothing he didn't already know about me, so I didn't think there was much I'd be afraid for him to overhear, but still, I couldn't help being curious. "What did I say?"

Hannibal ground his cigar out in an ashtray and grinned again. "Well, you only really did it once and that was an hour or two after I got you up here. You sat up and looked at me and said, _Guess I'm not a squirrel after all_."

I let my head fall back onto the pillow and laughed until I choked.

"You're kidding!" I managed as soon as I could speak.

"Nope. I just said, _No, Face, I guess you're not_ and you went right on back to sleep, and don't try and change the subject, Lieutenant. What did you mean about Decker?"

I glanced at him and smirked, trying not to look too pleased with myself. "Oh...nothing much. Just that he promised me he'd leave us in peace until January."

That concerned look was back in his eyes almost as fast as I regretted answering him.

"Face...did Decker make you this promise when you were wandering in the desert, by any chance?"

I stared at him, no longer smirking. "I'm not crazy, Hannibal."

Hannibal tapped ash into an ashtray – he keeps one in every room, including the bathroom – and answered, "Sane people can hallucinate too, kid. Especially when they're half dead with dehydration."

I shook my head. "Oh man, that's it. You know what, Hannibal? Forget it. Just...forget it, okay?"

"Face, you have to admit it does sound pretty unbelievable."

I heard myself laugh as if from a long way off. "Well, gee, Hannibal, if you don't believe that part of what happened to me, there's no way I'm telling you the rest!"

He studied me in silence for a long time, then said, "Let me get this straight. Decker – _Colonel_ Decker, the guy who's been trying to hunt us down for months – promised that he was just going to take a vacation until the new year...and that's the most plausible part of your story?"

"I said forget it, Hannibal! If you're not gonna listen, I'm not gonna talk!"

Hannibal caught hold of my shoulders as I attempted to push myself to my feet and pinned me down again. This was a lot easier than it would normally be, since – despite the salve – my sunburn was still excruciating, and all he had to do to get me to move in the opposite direction was to breathe on me.

"Alright, kid. Alright. I'm sorry. But you gotta admit it's hard to believe. I mean, Decker?"

"You weren't there," I told him in a monotone.

"No, Face, I wasn't. I was here, calling in all the favors I could manage to try and find out what the hell had happened to you."

I aimed my best glare at him. "Hannibal, I didn't exactly _ask_ for this to happen to me, you know? It's not like I went and got myself kidnapped just to inconvenience you!"

Hannibal stared at me, shock warring with anger. "Kidnapped?"

I looked away, cursing. He'd done it to me again. Every time we have a discussion about something not related to our current mission, I always wind up telling him more than I meant to.

"Yeah." I bit the word off at the end, letting him know that I didn't much want to talk about this either, and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

Distracted just as I'd hoped, Hannibal grabbed my ankles and swung them back again.

"And just what do you think you're doing, kid?"

"Getting up," I informed him, in defiance of current evidence.

"Lieutenant, when we found you, you had heat exhaustion, you were sunburned to a crisp and you were pretty much out of your mind with delirium. There is no way I'm letting you overexert yourself by moving around until you're fully recovered."

"I know, but you could at least let me get fully recovered on the couch so I can watch TV!"

He studied me for a few minutes and I gave him my best smile. Considering the state I was in, it was a pretty pathetic best smile and so I bolstered it up with, "C'mon, Hannibal, please?"

Hannibal took a long, deep breath, and I knew him well enough to know that I'd just won.

"Yeah, okay. C'mon."

It was just as well he was there, since I was aching in every muscle and my legs were still on strike, which meant I had to stop and rest after every couple of steps. It took ten minutes for us to get to the lounge from the spare room (my heartless commander refused point blank to carry me) and even that left me exhausted. Despite my claims that I was okay, the relief from my sunburn was making me feel deliciously sleepy all of a sudden, and I could feel my eyelids trying to drag themselves closed.

Hannibal made me some soup and a sandwich, but I was already dozing by the time it was done and he had to wake me to get me to eat. Once that was done, I drifted off into sleep again and this time he left me alone.

* * *

><p>"NO!" I sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, a tight pressure across my lungs. I felt someone put a hand on my shoulder and promptly freaked out, swinging my fist wildly through the air to punch them on the jaw.<p>

"Face! Face! Face! It's okay! It's okay! It's me!" Murdock caught hold of my wrists, pinning me to the couch. "It's just me."

I didn't have the strength to struggle for long, but it took several more seconds before I'd calmed down enough for him to let go.

"Oh man, Murdock, you scared the hell outta me!"

"What d'ya think you did to me?" Murdock demanded indignantly. "Faceman, are you tryin' to steal my thunder? 'Cause there's only room for one crazy guy on this here Team, an' you're lookin' at him!"

"Are you okay?"

Murdock gave me a rather strange look. "Shouldn't I be askin' you that, Faceman?"

"I'm not the one who got punched in the face," I pointed out, although I couldn't help thinking that he'd got the better end of the deal. The attack had sapped my strength and my sunburn and ribs were now screaming at me.

Helping me to sit upright, Murdock asked, "Did you punch me in the face? I jus' felt a kinda gentle, affectionate, brotherly pat."

That was probably all he had felt as well, I thought. I'd been running on pure adrenaline, but that wasn't enough to do any serious damage.

The door to the lounge crashed open and I jumped out of my skin, snapping my head around to come face to face with Hannibal.

"What in the world is going on in here?"

"Faceman had a nightmare." Murdock patted me on the shoulder, then threw himself backwards into an armchair, grinning. "Got kinda spooked."

"I did not get spooked, Murdock." I fell back onto the couch again, running trembling hands over my face. I wasn't too surprised to find I was sweating.

Hannibal sat down next to me. "But you did have a nightmare, right Face?"

"Only a little one!"

Murdock's grin broadened. "A little one. He's too modest, Colonel. Faceman freaked out; you shoulda seen him!"

"Murdock." Hannibal shot him a look that I could read all too easily as _not now_, then looked back at me. "Are you okay?"

You know how it is when something serious strikes you as funny? You don't understand why, but it does, and before you know it you're giggling like a lunatic? Yeah, well...that's pretty much what happened to me. I stared at Hannibal for a few seconds, then something inside me snapped like a rubber band that had finally been stretched too far and I started to laugh.

I was still laughing when I felt something like a bee sting my neck and slithered into darkness.

* * *

><p>"...What?" I managed.<p>

I was back in bed, nestled in among those same big pillows and tucked up underneath those same warm blankets.

"How you feeling, kid?"

It was such an overwhelming sense of deja vu, right down to Hannibal's question, that I found myself wondering if my waking up and cracking up in the lounge had all been some kind of dream.

"What...?" I said again.

Understanding my confusion, Hannibal tapped the familiar looking bottle next to him and I frowned.

"Isn't that what we use on BA?"

"Yeah, but it works just as well on you." This with a touch of humor, although I couldn't help noticing that Hannibal had a syringe on standby, just in case I lost it again.

"Oh man, Hannibal, I'm sorry. Guess I freaked you out, huh?"

He shook his head. "You didn't freak me out, Face, but you didn't look like you were going to stop any time soon either. I had to do something to calm you down."

"How long—"

"Only about eight hours or so. How's your sunburn?"

"Painful," I admitted. In fact that was something of an understatement; the blankets felt like sandpaper against my skin and my cracked ribs were now singing grand opera.

"I'll get some more salve on in a minute. You still want to recuperate on the couch?"

I managed a grin. "Yeah...translation, you just wanna keep an eye on me to make sure I don't go permanently insane."

Hannibal rolled his eyes and helped me to my feet. "Face, you're overdramatizing. You're in shock, you got a little hysterical back there, but that is _not_ the same thing as insanity, even if you did have a particularly bad attack. C'mon."

My legs felt a little better now, although it still took a long time to get into the lounge and down onto a couch, even with Hannibal's help.

"How much longer am I gonna be this way?" I demanded as Hannibal started salving my back again.

"I'm not too sure, Face. At least a few weeks, I would have thought."

"A few _weeks_?" I tried to turn around, failed and almost spilled myself sideways onto the floor.

Hannibal caught hold of my sunburned arm and pushed me upright again, ignoring my yelp. "At least. Longer if you keep trying to push yourself."

"But a few _weeks_?" I couldn't help it; I hate being ill and/or helpless. That's a hangover from my days at the orphanage, when it was constantly being drummed into us to smile, be polite, be nice, healthy Stepford kids, don't cry, don't complain, keep your troubles locked up deep inside you and never mention them to anyone; after all, adoptive parents don't want damaged goods, do they? In my case it made no difference, but even so...it's a hard lesson to unlearn.

"Lieutenant, you almost died out in that desert. You can't shake that off in a couple days. Now hold still unless you want me to leave you to your sunburn."

I held still obligingly. My sunburn was slightly better now – I guess the past few days I'd spent here asleep had helped some – but I had a long way to go yet.

Hannibal's hand brushed against my side and I sucked in my breath. With the sunburn and heat exhaustion in the desert, I'd almost forgotten about my ribs.

"I'll get you some painkillers in a minute, Face." I felt him pause, then he said, "What did you do to them?"

I tipped my head back and grinned at him, a little inanely. "Well, Hannibal, let's just say that in future I'm going to be tying my bootlaces _very_ securely, hmm?"

"...Right." That same concern was back in his eyes. "Because I noticed a slight indentation in your chest, and it looks like something or someone tried to crush you."

I was still a little muddled from the sedative, otherwise I'd never have been stupid enough to say what I said next.

"Yeah, that was pretty much it."

"_What_?"

"Oh. Uh." I looked away, mind racing. "Did I say—"

Hannibal caught hold of my jaw and turned my head back to face him. "Yes, Face, you _did_ say that, and don't even think of telling me you didn't! You've got acid burns, cracked ribs, not to mention who knows how many other scrapes and bruises. Add that to the fact that you were wandering half-naked in the desert for who knows how long and frankly, I'm amazed you're alive at all."

That set me off giggling again, although this time I managed to stop myself after a few seconds. "Yeah, Hannibal. So am I."

"What happened to you, kid?" Hannibal asked very quietly. I knew that tone: it meant trouble. Not for me; for whoever was responsible for doing this to me.

I opened my mouth, shut it, then opened it again long enough to say, "Hannibal...no. I can't. Not to you."

"Why not?" A casual observer wouldn't have heard anything out of place, but I knew him well enough to know that he was a little hurt by such a flat declaration.

"Because you'd never believe me. No one would."

He shrugged. "So?"

I have to admit, I didn't have an answer to that.

"Face, it doesn't matter whether I believe you or not. I'll listen and I think it'll do you good to get it off your chest."

I couldn't argue with that, but I still thought Hannibal would toss me into a straitjacket as soon as I told him. And I couldn't handle that idea; he's one of the very few people in the world (the others being Murdock and, to a slightly lesser extent, BA) whose opinion matters to me.

"Oh, and by the way," Hannibal added, "I think this belongs to you."

He reached into his pocket and passed me a familiar looking spark plug.

"You didn't seem to like the idea of giving it up, so I figured it might be important," he added as I grabbed for it, snatching it out of his hand so fast my fingernails scratched his palm.

Yeah, yeah, I know it was pathetic. I also know that if BA found out, he'd make my life hell about it until the day I died (at least if his treatment of Murdock was anything to go by) but I couldn't help any of that. If I was going to relive what had happened to me, I wanted a source of comfort and security. I wanted my spark plug. If nothing else, it was a kind of flimsy proof that I hadn't dreamed it all, that it really happened. And, I suddenly realised, I wanted something else.

"Hannibal, where's Murdock?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Last I saw him, he was trying to roast peanuts. Why?"

"Can you get him in here? Right now?" Not because I wanted him to hear, but because I wanted someone around who sounded even more crazy than I was about to.

He looked a little surprised, then nodded. "Sure, kid."

Murdock came willingly enough (apparently the experiment to see if you could roast peanuts by soaking regular ones in salt water and blasting them in the microwave wasn't going too well) and promptly set about poking my feet until I moved them up enough for him to sit down.

At least I still had my spark plug. It seemed crazy now how much store I'd set by that one little thing, and yet the part of me that could still remember being delirious in the desert also remembered how and why.

Well, we all had our little items. Murdock had his flight jacket and/or baseball cap, BA had his gold, Hannibal had his cigars and now I had my spark plug.

Oh god, maybe I really was crazy.

"Whatever you tell me, kid, you're still a member of the Team," Hannibal added.

"Yeah, exactly, Faceman." Murdock edged closer and patted me on the knee, which was one of the less sunburned places on my body. "I mean, c'mon, if they let me stay, they gotta let you hang around. Even if you are Looney Tunes."

I really could have done without that little addendum, but that was beside the point. At least Murdock wasn't likely to bail on me. Hell, if the colonel did decide I was nuts, maybe I could bunk with him in the VA.

"I...it just...it sounds too crazy. Like the plot for a low-budget, tacky horror movie."

Murdock shook his head, clicking his tongue. "Face, you are sittin' in the same room as the Killergator, the Gila Monster _and_ the Aquamaniac. Hannibal here knows all about low-budget, tacky horror movies, so I doubt anythin' you gotta say is gonna shock him."

Hannibal gave Murdock a long look but – for once – didn't rise. Watching him, I thought for a horrible moment I was going to get the giggles again.

"An' I got crazy covered," Murdock added, "so really, Faceman, you ain't got nothin' to worry about."

So I told them. I started right at the beginning, when I first woke up in that damn cellar, and continued right on through until I got to the point where Decker and I parted company. I even told them about Nadia, and everything that had happened with her. That took some doing. I seriously didn't like to dwell on that – who would? – but if I was gonna tell them, I was gonna tell them everything.

I only hoped they wouldn't have me committed at the end of it.

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><p><strong>So, next up, Face's story begins ;-) In the meantime, hope you liked this so far and if you read, please review!<strong>


	3. Twelve Inches of Death

**halfcent: **Thanks :)

**dawn wilkerson: ***blushes* Thanks :) Hope you like this next part as well ;)

**Q the omnipotent night fury:** Heh, thanks. No, I'm not going to forget _Rambutan_, but it takes a lot longer to write chapters for that story ;)

**kelco:** Thanks :) And one continuation, as requested ;)

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><p>"Ow-w-w..."<p>

I sat up slowly and rubbed my head, wincing as my hand brushed over a graze and a large, throbbing lump the size of a basketball.

Alright, maybe not quite that big, but you get the idea.

_What...?_

It was the night before Halloween, or at least it had been when I was attacked. Hannibal had insisted (mostly thanks to BA) that since we didn't have a client and since we were all together, we were going to cater to trick-or-treaters this year. All well and good, except he'd also decided that the leader of the A-Team couldn't go out and buy his own costume (and _that _was mostly thanks to the Redskins game that was starting about ten minutes after he mentioned this) and so he'd picked on poor, faithful, overworked and unappreciated little me. I'd had a few twenty dollar bills thrust into my hand and been booted out of my cozy apartment at about four pm to wander the dark, wet, freezing cold streets of LA, California, trudging the snow-covered sidewalks for hours on end.

It's called creative license, okay? C'mon, work with me here.

Anyway, I was sent out in search of Halloween costumes for me, Hannibal and BA (Murdock had picked out and started wearing his costume a week earlier).

I'm not exactly a fan of dressing up – even as a kid I hated it – and I'd only managed to escape this time by saying I planned to be a soldier in combat fatigues. Granted this also involved a costume, but at least it was one I'd worn several times before and therefore one I could just about put on without dying of humiliation.

BA was to be a tribal warrior, since he had most of the outfit in his closet and I just had to buy him a spear. Hannibal's was a giant rutabaga.

Look, I told you; it was the night before Halloween. There wasn't a good selection left; it was either a giant rutabaga or a Roman emperor, and since I happened to be seriously pissed off with him at the time for sending me to run his errands, he'd got the rutabaga.

Since the rutabaga costume also happened to be a lot cheaper than the Roman emperor, I figured I might as well put the change from the money Hannibal gave me to good use and so I'd gone to take in a movie and then an early dinner at a nice little restaurant I knew, and from there onto a wine bar and from there...well, anyway, last thing I remembered was wandering home very late with these damn costumes in a bag and...everything got kinda dark after that.

Now I was here. Wherever here was; I couldn't see a thing. Worse of all, I could feel that my clothes had been torn to shreds and I had no idea how or why.

"Hey...Hannibal?"

My voice echoed eerily in the darkness and I felt a shiver run down my spine. I don't like the dark.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's pathetic, but it's true. I'm okay if there's some light source (even the moon or dashboard lights if we're driving along at night is fine) but complete blackness...uh uh. That seriously freaks me out. Don't ask me why.

No, really...don't ask.

There was no answer – not that I'd really expected one – and the shiver on my tailbone increased a little.

_Okay, Face. Okay. Calm down. Close your eyes and take a deep breath._

That actually helped a little. All the time I had my eyes shut and didn't have to see it was dark, I could pretend that it wasn't.

I inhaled, testing the air. Someone – I can't remember who, it may have been Murdock – once told me that it's a good idea to develop your other senses, in case...well, in case you get knocked out and dumped in a dark room, I guess. I hadn't bothered with it, which was why I couldn't smell anything beyond dank air and my own sweat, but the basic idea was good. Dank air...that usually meant underground. Like a cellar or something.

Was it the military? That was possible, I guess, but...no. No, the military would mean Decker, and he wouldn't lock me up in a place like this, would he? No, he'd want to come down and gloat over me, maybe taunt me a little, and he'd want to see my expression while he did it. Unless he'd really lost his marbles and dumped me in his basement, I thought I could rule out Decker.

Most importantly, was there a way out?

I seemed to hear Hannibal's voice echoing in my head: _Of course there's a way out, Face. They got you in here, so there must be a way you can get yourself out_. _But you're not going anywhere until you can see what you're doing, so stop sitting around wondering about things and start making them happen!_

Yeah, that's definitely what Hannibal would have said if he'd been there. Quit panicking and do something constructive.

I opened my eyes (it didn't make any difference; I still couldn't see anything) and started making my way across the floor, feeling with my feet. I had a nasty feeling that something – or someone – was watching me. Someone distinctly unfriendly.

Was there someone in the room? Watching me through infrared goggles?

My imagination is a little too good sometimes, particularly in the dark. In my mind's eye, I could see this person stalking me, creeping up behind me, holding a...no, not a meat cleaver, but a butcher knife. Twelve inches of death, raised above their head for a killing blow straight into my spine. I couldn't shake the feeling that if I turned, I'd see them drawing closer and closer, red glowing circles for their goggles and a gleaming steel blade, shining in the darkness, raised for the kill.

_You know that's not possible. Goggles don't glow in the dark and you can't even see your hand in front of your face, let alone an imaginary butcher knife._

This might actually have calmed me down had my treacherous mind not added, _You probably won't even know they're there until they stab you._

Great. Now I really felt better.

_Then again, maybe whoever's watching you doesn't need to sneak up on you. Maybe you're walking right towards them. They're playing a nasty little game here. They want to draw it out and any minute now they're going to reach out and very gently just...touch your face..._

It was at this point that I blundered into a cobweb and let out a high-pitched yell.

No, it was _not_ a scream! I don't scream. I never scream. It was a high-pitched yell. _Okay_?

Okay.

Once my heart rate had slowed to something approaching normal, I continued my explorations, walking into two walls before I finally managed to locate a light switch.

I hesitated. If nobody had snuck up and killed me so far, it probably meant they weren't going to.

Were they waiting for me to turn the light on? I'd watched the movie _Alien_ a couple nights ago and I couldn't quite get a certain part out of my head. You know, the part where the guy's hunting for the alien in the service tunnels and can't find it, then he turns around with his flashlight and sees it about six inches away from him.

If I turned on the light now, what would I see?

_Maybe an exit, kid._ Like the person it seemed to be based on, my Hannibal-Voice just would not shut up.

It had a point though; standing around here with my hand on the switch wasn't going to get me out of here any faster, and if someone was waiting to kill me, at least I'd be able to see enough to fight them.

I flicked the switch. For a horrible moment I thought that it was a dud, then a filthy light bulb hanging from the ceiling sputtered into life and I looked around me.

I was in a cellar. I'd already surmised as much from the smell of damp earth, but this was a cellar unlike any I'd ever seen before. Someone had put linoleum down on the floor and then turned this place into a dumping ground: bags of all shapes and sizes were piled up in one corner; ladies' bags, rucksacks, plastic bags, even a holdall or two. A desk had been shoved against another wall and I searched it quickly, but came up with nothing more than several paper clips, a few scraps of blank paper and a lot of dust.

There was a door in the far wall and I tried the handle, only to find it rattled uselessly in my grasp.

Well, I hadn't really expected it to be that easy.

A little more searching among the bags turned up the bag of costumes I'd bought in LA and I yanked it out, causing an unzipped rucksack to tip upside down and spill its contents all over me. There was a nametag attached to it and I glanced down at it as I struggled to extricate myself with the maximum amount of dignity and minimum of falling bags.

_Kevin Heath..._

I frowned at the nametag. I knew that name from somewhere, I just couldn't think where.

I pondered this for a few minutes, trying to remember, then dismissed it. I had more important things to worry about, like formulating some kind of escape plan. Hannibal always told me to look at what you had and then you can work out how to use it to get what you need.

I checked what I had: one empty desk, one pile of bags; assorted sizes, one giant rutabaga costume, one set of military fatigues and one plastic spear.

This proves that Hannibal is not as wise as he likes everyone to think. I mean, Harry Houdini couldn't put together much of an escape with that, so there was no way I stood much of a chance.

And I was scared.

I don't often get scared. I mean, I'm not a tank like BA or suicidal like Hannibal can be sometimes, but I'm a lot tougher than most people think to look at me. But this place felt...twisted, disjointed, like looking at your reflection in a shattered mirror.

Yeah, I know that sounds like a bunch of hippy crap, but it's true. My instincts had kept me alive this far; I wasn't about to start ignoring them now.

It looked like I had three choices. Either I could walk around this place and try to escape in these rags, which were all that remained of my clothes, or I could put on the army fatigues, or I could try my luck as a giant rutabaga.

It probably goes without saying that I put on the army fatigues. That was better. At least I was warmer now.

I tested the door again, just in case someone had sneaked up and unlocked it while I was busy getting dressed. Well, you never know.

In this case, I was unlucky. The door was still locked, and the same jerk who'd taken my clothes had taken my picks.

I stared at the door, imagined it was Decker's face, and kicked it as hard as I could. The shock rocketed up my leg, almost knocking me off my feet, but it did the job; the door slammed open with a clang that echoed through the building. The hell with stealth; it wasn't as if whoever was responsible didn't know I was here.

On the other side of the door, a short corridor stretched out a little way in front of me. It was about eight feet long, five foot wide and completely bare – or so I thought – but something about it didn't feel right. I couldn't see any obvious booby traps, but I guess being hidden is the first requirement of a booby trap. I hadn't seen most of the VC ones back in Nam either.

I started to step into the corridor, then stopped. This had happened before; some instinct had warned me away from a certain patch of jungle. Other soldiers hadn't had that instinct and all of them had wound up in the local MASH unit with legs shredded by Cong traps.

In the end, I went back to the pile of bags and dug out the largest of the holdalls, then dragged it over to the corridor. There was no nametag on this one and I had no idea just what its owner had put in it – possibly bricks, judging by the weight – but I was sure it weighed more than me.

Whatever it was, it saved my life. I'd pushed that holdall about six inches along the corridor, reasoning that if it didn't trigger anything, it was probably safe to follow it, when half a dozen blades flashed out from the wall and shredded it to pieces.

I know, I know. It sounds nuts, right? Like I was wandering around in an old Aztec temple instead of...well, wherever I was. But it's the truth. I think they were on a rotational device; they came out one end, flashed around and went back in the other end. Like a very deadly wheel.

For a moment I couldn't move. I just stood there while my heart tried to hammer its way out of my chest, staring at that corridor. What the hell kind of place was this? More to the point, just who the hell had put me here?

Now that I knew what to look for, I could just about make out the slots in the wall where the blades rotated out from, but that wasn't going to do me much good. The corridor was too narrow to dodge them, and too far to jump. I didn't know if the whole floor was wired, but I wasn't going to try finding out the hard way either. Okay, so none of the blades were above knee high, but that didn't matter; even if they were too blunt to take my leg off (which I doubted) and even if I jumped as far as I could, I'd still lose a serious amount of blood getting from one end of the corridor to the other.

I supposed I could stay where I was, but that didn't hold much appeal; I'd have to eat and drink sometime. Worse, I'd have to sleep, and who knew what kind of person might come creeping up on me while I was out? I could see it now; me stretching out on the ground and going to sleep, all sweet and innocent, a happy little smile on my face as I dreamed of marshmallow bunnies and pretty flowers and a shedload of bikini models, and there would be a hidden door in the wall that would creak open very softly, and my would-be killer would just ease right through it and approach my slumbering form, so quietly even I'd never hear them, and—

_Alright, now that's enough!_ There it was again, my Hannibal-Voice. It was almost as though he was standing right next to me. _You're not going to fall asleep, Face; you're going to figure a way out of this._

"Yeah." I spoke aloud; it was good to hear a voice in this place, even my own. "Yeah. Alright."

Thinking of Hannibal made me wonder if the guys had missed me yet. Maybe not. I didn't know how long I'd been gone for and I doubt Hannibal had expected to see me back much before eleven.

Well, at least whoever had grabbed me had left me the bag of costumes. I picked it up (getting these costumes had proven to be more troublesome than I'd expected, and I'd made up my mind that Hannibal was going to get this damn rutabaga outfit if it killed me) and threw it down the corridor. It landed neatly at the other end, or close enough to it for me to grab it when I got there. If I got there.

_Great. Now what?_

I took a deep breath, then pulled my boots off, took off my socks and stuffed them into the boots and then threw both socks and boots down the corridor after the bag. What I was planning was insane. It was the kind of crazy plan Hannibal would have been proud of. It was also something that would work a whole lot better with bare feet. I didn't know if the blades were triggered with pressure pads or some kind of infrared beams, but I figured so long as I kept above them, it wouldn't matter.

I placed my hands on either side of the corridor, gripping the corner so tightly my knuckles turned white, then carefully lifted myself up, bracing my feet against opposite walls. I was now 'standing' above the floor. I even managed to hold that position for all of five seconds before slipping down.

I winced. I'd have to do a lot better than that. Eight feet wasn't too far, but there was no way I could jump it. No way I was going to risk falling short.

The trouble was, taking it slowly with my plan didn't seem to be an option either. Bare feet offered a better grip than smooth, shiny Army boots – I'd been right about that much, at least – but not enough to keep me up there for longer than a few seconds. It was like running up a slide; if you stopped or even hesitated halfway up, you slithered down again. The only way was to charge it and hurtle on up to the top before gravity had a chance to work out what was happening.

I had a nasty suspicion that this worked the same way. I'd have to leap up, push against the walls and move as fast as I could to the other end, all the while knowing that one little slip and that would be it.

I swallowed. Like I said, I don't scare easily, but this was a little beyond the normal range of things the A-Team encountered.

_Not much point waiting, kid_, Mind-Hannibal told me. He was right about that; the longer I waited, the more nervous I got, and the more nervous I got, the sweatier my palms were going to get, and then I could kiss any grip from that quarter goodbye.

Even so, I made at least three or four (oh, alright; more like ten) false attempts before finally working up the guts to do it for real.

I'm still not sure how I managed it. It's like falling off a horse; at the time you're fully aware of what's happening, but when you try to look back on it, you remember beginning to fall and you remember hitting the ground but the actual fall itself is something of a blank. I remember throwing myself as far down the corridor as I could in order to reduce the distance I'd have to travel, and I remembered thrashing around with all four limbs like a spider having a temper tantrum and somehow managing to move forward in the midst of all this, but the next really clear memory is of when I caught hold of the wall at the far end of the corridor and yanked, pulling myself forward so hard I torpedoed myself into the opposite wall. I had just enough wits left to turn as I hit, so that instead of cracking my skull on the concrete, I slammed into it sideways with enough force to knock the breath from my body.

I dropped to the ground, whimpering a little as I tried to suck air into my lungs, but – and this is an important _but_ – at least I wasn't sliced to pieces. My scheme, hare-brained though it may have been (or should that be Hannibal-brained?) had worked.

Not that I'd ever had _doubts_, you understand. Not real doubts, anyway.

Pulling myself to my feet, I took a step forward. The room wobbled around me for a few seconds, then decided to settle into focus.

Actually, calling it a _room_ is a little too generous. It was another, longer corridor, one that was completely bare as far as I could see, save for the door at one end and...was that a _person_?

I couldn't say for sure whether or not it was; the far end of this corridor was far too dark for that, but there definitely seemed to be a person-shaped patch of shadow down there.

"Hello?" My voice echoed slightly in the empty space. "Is someone there?"

Silence. Feeling a little dumb, I tried again.

"Look, if you're there, I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? I just wanna talk."

This wasn't entirely true. If the person hiding down there was the one responsible for putting me here, then I was planning to do a little more to them than _talk._

I got a little closer. I was sure I could make out a person there. Maybe it was this Kevin Heath (and why _did_ that name keep coming back to haunt me?)

I was a lot closer now. I'd been moving slowly – if it was a fellow victim, which was my next guess, I didn't want to scare them – but I'd gotten close enough at this point to see what was there.

Nothing. Just my eyes playing tricks on me. They've done this to me before; I have been known to pull my gun on a full size floor lamp. Kinda like those people who dip their headlights for other people's driveway lights.

Man, this place was nuts. I turned and started walking away from the non-existent person, although I couldn't help the odd glance or two over my shoulder. I'd been so sure there was someone there. Just where the hell was I, anyway?

Wherever it was, there only seemed to be one way out (or rather, forward), and that was through a large, heavy-looking metal door at the far end. You know, the kind of door that you open by spinning a wheel.

I spun the wheel. The door opened. Cold air rolled out and engulfed me, and I shivered. Did I really have to go in there?

_Unless you want to go back the way you came._

I shivered again, only this time the frigid air had nothing to do with it. No, I did _not_. Besides, I knew there was no way out there. If I wanted to escape, I'd have to go on. Go on and hope I ran into an exit sooner or later. I didn't expect to find one inside this freezing room, but I couldn't see one anywhere else either, and so I thought I might as well take a quick look inside.

It was impossible to make out much in the semi-darkness, but it looked like some kind of giant, walk in refrigerator or meat locker. I could just about see objects hanging (and swinging) from the ceiling, but it was too gloomy to spot any details.

What kind of building was this? A slaughterhouse? Who'd brought me here in the first place? And why did I keep thinking about the name on that damn rucksack?

Then it hit me.

Did I say I was scared before?

I was wrong. _Now_ I was scared, my mouth gone completely dry in just under half a second and for the first time in several years – since the POW camp in Vietnam, in fact – I seriously thought I was going to pass out.

_Oh boy_...

Now I remembered who Kevin Heath was..._had been_. And I knew who had me. Boy, did I know. I knew something else as well: I wasn't supposed to survive this.

As if in agreement, the door of the meat locker slammed shut behind me, and I was plunged into darkness again.

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><p><strong>Okay, so that's it for this chapter ;) More (but not too <strong>_**much**_** more) will be explained next time ;) Hope you liked it and if you read, please review!**


	4. Into the Darkness

**dawn wilkerson: **Thanks :) I try

**Q the omnipotent night fury: **Thanks XD And you're close; a rutabaga is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip (literally). In some places, like the UK, it's known as a swede. And yeah, it does look kinda like a giant beet ;)

**rutabagacostumeD: **Heh, thanks. And you wanted more...well, you got more ;)

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><p><em>Light...light...where's the damn light<em>? I knew there was one; I'd caught a glimpse of the switch on the far wall just before that door had slammed shut and trapped me in here. I just had to find it, push it and hope that it worked.

Luckily for me, when I finally found it, it lit up the whole room.

Unluckily, it lit up a lot _more _of the room than I'd really wanted to see.

I hadn't been too far off when I thought of it as a butcher's storeroom. The dim, shadowy objects I'd seen swaying gently on their own little hooks were carcasses, same as you'd find in a place like that. There was just one difference.

These were human.

They weren't – how shall I put this? – _entire_; there was nothing hanging there but the torsos, which was why I hadn't recognized the silhouettes. Someone had dismembered them, taking off the arms, legs and head with surgical precision.

I couldn't help it; I turned, stumbled a few steps away and vomited helplessly. I hate throwing up. Apart from the actual sensation and that nasty, slimy taste it leaves in your mouth, it also leaves those ugly dark red pinpricks all over your face...at least, it does with my face. Maybe other people don't have to worry.

I straightened up very carefully; the last thing I wanted was to hit my head on one of those torsos. I wondered if any of the male ones belonged to Kevin Heath, and if so, which one.

_Kevin Heath_.

The name kept going around and around in my head, like a song you can't get rid of.

He'd been a high school student, whose name I only remembered because he hailed from the outskirts of Michigan, which happens to be Hannibal's hometown. Well. Kinda. I mean, Hannibal was an Army brat, so he moved around a lot.

He'd also gone out hiking with a friend and vanished aged fifteen (Kevin, not Hannibal), which had baffled police. He'd been a good student, no trouble with drugs or at home, no reason to run away. The friend – naturally the Number One Suspect – was distraught but had no idea what had happened. Far as I know, the police had stayed baffled right up until an unmarked video was mailed to the Heath household, postmarked Philadelphia.

I don't know the details of what was on that video; the parents never released it to the press, although I'm sure they had some good offers for it. What I know from the papers – and yeah, the story made it all the way to LA – was what the police told the press: that the video showed Kevin Heath's last moments, from the time he woke up to the time he was slaughtered. The reporters described it as a _gruesome demise_, and even though they tend to exaggerate, if the poor kid had ended up in that corridor, then _gruesome demise_ would have been quite accurate. I don't often care about murders that take place on the other side of the country, but I remember feeling a pang of sympathy for the Heath family. Knowing your kid was dead had to be bad enough; watching it happen on your own TV added a new layer of sadism to the whole thing. And you _would_ watch it; there was always the chance it could be a ransom video or something.

I sat down on the floor as I thought about who was behind this (my knee had started twinging after I'd made my way through that damn corridor. I wondered if I'd tweaked a muscle or something).

There had to be a limit to the number of rooms in this building. Same went for there being a way out; whoever put me here didn't push me in through the wall. Even if they'd dragged me all the way through the building, they'd have had to get me inside at some point. Whoever was behind this was mechanically talented and probably trained, to rig up something like the blades I'd seen back there. Someone who didn't want to kill me themselves, but instead wanted to watch me die. Add that to the video and that meant there were a few cameras and mikes scattered around the place. Okay, I hadn't seen any back in that cellar, but then, I hadn't thought to look.

I did a quick sweep now, pushing the dangling torsos out of my way with as much dignity as I could manage. Nothing. Maybe this guy had stuffed them inside the torsos themselves.

I glanced at one, then backed away from it. Uh uh. No way was I rummaging around inside _there_; if he _had_ planted cameras and mikes inside dead and semi-frozen bodies, then they'd just have to stay in there. If I did die and if a copy of my death video found its way to Hannibal, I'd rather he see me perform a sloppy search than see me unhook a dismembered torso and then root around in it with my bare hands.

At least now I knew for certain it wasn't the Army (while I'd never really suspected Decker, I hadn't quite ruled out the possibility of some new officer rising to our challenge). Even they wouldn't set up something like this and murder several innocent people just to get to us. That was the other thing I knew; Kevin wasn't the only victim of this jerk, just the most recent one.

Well, second most recent. _I_ was the most recent.

That thought kicked me back into action and I headed back to the door. There was no handle on this side, and I wasn't stupid enough to try kicking this one like I had the last one. I'd seen this door as I opened it. It was solid metal and about six inches thick; if I kicked it, I'd be lucky not to break every bone in my foot.

I turned around and paused as my gaze fell on the large freezer at the other end of the room, a new thought occurring to me.

Was that a way out? I'd seen a panic room designed on those lines in one of my house sitting jobs; you opened the closet, pushed your way past the clothes and went through a secret door on the other side into the room itself. Kinda like a commando style (and much smaller) Narnia. I figured it had to be worth a try. At the very least I'd find out what was in the freezer; maybe I could use whatever I found to help escape, or find out where I was.

It turned out to be a dead body.

Well...more than one, actually. It was a little hard to tell which limbs went with which torso and I wasn't interested in playing jigsaw.

I swallowed. I'm not a squeamish man or even a particularly superstitious one, but the thought of hurling limbs over my shoulder and treading on frozen, dead fingers as I climbed down into that freezer for an exit that might not even be there didn't sit well with me.

_All these people_...There had to be some twelve torsos swinging on their hooks, and at least twice as many arms and legs, which made a grisly sort of sense when I thought about it logically, but that didn't make it any easier.

I searched the room for any way out, including trying the door several times (no go; it was still as sealed as it had been the last fifteen or so times I tried it). Believe me, I searched it, and when I was done, I searched it again. You know. Just in case I'd missed anything the first time.

Ah man, who am I kidding? The truth is I was stalling, trying my best to put off the moment when I'd have to examine that freezer more closely.

Was there any way I could take the lid off? I'm not what you'd call claustrophobic but I didn't want to get in all the time there was a chance it would slam shut and trap me like the door just had. Slow asphyxiation in the pitch dark was _not_ my ideal choice of death (that involved extreme old age, champagne and several beautiful women. And for any gods who might be listening, nurses don't count! At least, not for this fantasy).

Where was I? Oh right; stalling.

The lid opened and shut easily enough – unlike that damn door – but I couldn't even see how it was attached to the freezer, let alone how to _un_attach it. As far as I could see, that only left me one option, and so I began unpacking the freezer with as much dignity as I could, trying very hard not to notice how the ice on those limbs made my skin stick to them. It's at (very rare) times like this that I miss having Tawnia around; her talon like fingernails would have been far better suited to this kinda thing.

The little part of my mind that seemed to work independently of the rest of me wondered if any of these arms and legs had belonged to poor Kevin. At least there were no heads in that freezer. I didn't know if they'd been hidden somewhere else, but I sure as hell wasn't about to go on a scavenger hunt.

Once the freezer was empty, I bent over and peered inside.

Turned out I was right. I could see hinges on one side of the bottom, and a bolt on the other. There was no lock on the bolt and it didn't look rusty, but it was too far for me to just reach down and unfasten. I'd have to get right in there, or...

I frowned, then hoisted myself onto the edge of the freezer, gripping it tightly between my legs. I'd done this a time or two back at the orphanage, when I'd wanted to get some ice cream without anyone else knowing. Ice cream was a serious luxury, only available to the Very Good Kids, and that only on Very Special Occasions. I was never considered a Good Kid (let alone a _Very_ Good Kid) and so the only way I ever got to taste ice cream growing up was to sneak into the kitchens and take it for myself. This trick had worked then; I didn't see why it wouldn't work now.

Holding on tightly with my knees, I leaned sideways and reached down, managing to grasp hold of the bolt and slide it back. The trapdoor (in this case, the bottom of the freezer) dropped open. I listened for the _clang_ as it hit the wall below, but couldn't hear it. That was good. It meant I could lower myself down, roll in that direction and not be afraid of hitting anything.

I clambered back out, retrieved Hannibal's rutabaga costume and dropped it through the trapdoor. At least I'd have a fairly soft landing, although I wasn't sure what kind of room I'd be landing in. All I could see was concrete.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to go further underground, although now that I thought about it, I wasn't sure that I _would_ be. I mean, I'd assumed I was in a cellar or a basement when I first woke up, but all I'd really had to confirm that was the smell. It had certainly _smelled_ like a cellar, that kind of dank, wet smell, but I have to admit that my nose is not my most reliable organ when it comes to pinpointing my location. I guess I could just as easily have been on the top floor for all I knew...which let out any convenient thoughts of jumping out the first window I came to.

_So instead of working my way up and across, I have to work my way down?_

Well, it was an exit, of sorts, and if I ended up trapped in a tiny little room with no way out, at least it was no worse than being trapped here.

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and dropped.

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><p><strong>Okay...kinda short, I know, but it seemed a good place to end it ;) Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!<strong>


	5. Tough Choices

**Q the omnipotent night fury: **Yep, you got it ;) And thanks :)

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><p>The drop turned out to be a little further than I'd expected, and even with the rutabaga costume to cushion my fall, I was lucky not to break both my legs. Hey, it's hard to judge these things from where I'd been at the time, okay?<p>

I hit the ground, tucked, rolled in the wrong direction and crashed into the wall. Wincing, I got to my feet and looked around, hoping there was nobody around.

Nope. Good. I dusted myself off and then, for the benefit of the tape, said, "I meant to do that."

I looked around. I was in a small, well-lit room with a short corridor leading deeper into the building and – amazingly – an illuminated EXIT sign at the far end, with an arrow pointing to the left.

For a long moment all I could do was stand and stare at it. Was it really that simple? Had I somehow beaten this hell?

_Nothing in life is ever that simple, kid_, my Hannibal-Voice told me. I told it to shut up – something I'd never dare say to the real Hannibal – and went back to puzzling over this latest development, staring at the sign as though I could embarrass it into giving me the answer.

I couldn't, of course (although BA might have had better luck) but I did notice something. There was something pale against the wall, something small and plastic looking, like an ID or credit card. Every sense tingling on red alert, glancing around for any signs of a trap, I walked over to it, reached down and took it, then threw myself flat on the ground for good measure.

Nothing happened. There was no hidden blade, no rigged shotgun. Someone had simply dropped this, or left it.

Now I seemed to be in less danger of imminent death, I examined my find more closely. Not an ID card; instead it looked like some sort of keycard. Shrugging, I pocketed it. Who knew; maybe it would come in handy.

It didn't, however, solve the more immediate problem; namely which way was I supposed to go? Which was more stupid; to put my trust in someone who'd kidnapped and tried to kill me and blindly follow the EXIT signs they'd put up, or turn and walk in the opposite direction when there was no guarantee there would be an exit there either? Maybe they were banking on my thinking they were trying to trick me and going left, so they'd rigged up another trap down that passage? Was this just some kind of elaborate double-bluff?

I groaned. It's fun when it's Hannibal doing things like this to the bad guys, but having to suffer them myself made my head hurt. I didn't even have a coin to flip. In the end I decided to try my luck with the EXIT sign and headed off to the left.

As I got further down the corridor, I became aware of a low thrumming noise, like some kind of machinery. It was impossible to tell how far away it was; the narrow corridor distorted the sound, echoes bouncing off the walls and all around me. I was more surprised that any kind of machinery could operate here; this part of the building was so cold I could see my breath misting in front of me. Maybe I really was underground.

It was then that I rounded a corner, saw what was there and promptly lost all interest in puzzling out where I was.

I'd been right in assuming it was a machine. It was, in fact, a timber slicer, tucked away in one corner opposite a metal door with another EXIT sign directly above it.

The slicer itself was occupied. There was a kid – she couldn't have been older than her mid-teens – strapped to it. I couldn't see her face (whoever brought her here had wrapped a thick black hood around her head, blindfolding her) but I could tell from the frantic squirming that she was still alive, and aware that whatever was happening, it wasn't good.

I'd seen this kind of thing in sitcoms and cartoons. Turned out the reality wasn't quite so funny.

I examined the machine as closely as I dared, not wanting to come into contact with those blades. I also did it as silently as I could; I didn't much want this poor kid knowing I was there if it turned out I couldn't help her. There were a few buttons and levers on the machine, none of which I felt confident enough to experiment with. I might switch it off, or I might end up doubling the speed and sending my fellow captive to a rather messy end. There had to be an emergency stop button somewhere, but if there was, I couldn't see it. I guess if whoever took us possessed enough technical know-how to rig up those damn blades, they'd be able to take a big red button off a machine too.

A little more frantic searching on my part turned up a slot on the side, one that looked about the right size for the keycard. Maybe that was it. Maybe whoever did this used a keycard to start and stop the machine, only he'd dropped it on his way out or...or something.

It sounded pathetic even to me, but it had to be worth a try. I glanced quickly up at the (supposed) exit door, trying to figure out if I could kick it open or something...and saw another slot on the wall next to it.

Was that it? Had this jerk dropped it on purpose, wanting to see what choice I'd make? Two slots: one on the machine, one next to the door. Whichever one I chose, I wasn't naive enough to believe I'd get the keycard back.

_The kid's blindfolded and you haven't made a sound. She doesn't know you're here. You can just leave her; save yourself._

I took two steps toward the door marked EXIT, then stopped. How could I turn my back on an escape route? How could I give up the possibility of a way out to save someone's life?

Put like that, how could I not?

Swearing mentally, using the worst words I could think of (and believe me, I had plenty to choose from, in English, Vietnamese and – thanks to Hannibal – Korean) I turned back to the machine and rammed the keycard into the slot. Sometimes I really wish I wasn't such a nice, self-sacrificing guy.

The machine juddered hard, then ground to a halt. An ominous ticking sound came from inside and I felt the blood drain from my face. What, was the damn thing rigged up to a bomb or something?

Whether it was or not, at least it had stopped moving. I reached down, yanking on the straps, trying to undo them. It wasn't easy; the leather was stiff and cracked with age and by the time I'd managed to get one ankle strap unfastened, the ends of my fingers were feeling a little tender.

I hurried around to the other side with only a slight stumble (the kid had moved her leg off the machine as soon as I'd released it, which was an understandable reaction but one that also tripped me up and very nearly sent me flat on my face) and started work there. Either this one was easier or I'd gotten the knack of undoing medieval-looking leather straps; whichever it was, I got it unfastened in about half the time of the first one.

It was at that point that the ticking stopped and the machine restarted itself.

Swearing out loud this time, I redoubled my efforts on the girl's wrist, wishing I hadn't used the keycard so soon; it might have been sturdy enough to have given me some extra leverage, and the conveyor belt for the slicer wasn't moving all that fast.

One wrist unfastened. I really was getting better at this; if the Team ever found itself in this kind of situation, I was going to be able to surprise everybody. Just as well, really, seeing this kid didn't seem much inclined to help with the last restraint. Maybe she figured her hand would just get in the way, or more likely, she was in some kind of shock.

I got the last strap unfastened just as she was getting uncomfortably close to the blades. There was no time to be elegant or gentlemanly about it; I put both hands under her armpits and yanked hard, dragging her off the machine.

Helping her to her feet, I reached out and pulled that damn hood off her. Two seconds later, I was slapped hard across the face.

This almost never happens to me. Women, even young women, tend to give off plenty of warning signs before a date degenerates into slapping, and as an officer and a gentleman (as Hannibal's so fond of saying, although I've known a few officers who were far from gentlemen) I always feel obliged to take those warnings seriously.

"_Ow_! What was that for? Look, kid, I'm on your side!"

She stared at me, apparently uncomprehending. Some instinct warned me and I reached out and caught hold of her, supporting her weight as she clung to me and burst into tears. Usually I like it when women do this (it lets me comfort them and opens up good opportunities for more intimate forms of comfort later on; they like sensitive, caring men) but the operative word there is _women_, not _girls_. I doubted this kid was more than fifteen years old, and that's at least ten years too young for me.

Alright...maybe five.

"Okay, honey. Okay." I waited until the sobs had dwindled into hiccups before speaking again. "What's your name?"

"Nadia Stegner."

"Uh huh. I'm Templeton Peck. You can call me Face. Did you, uh, see who did this to you?"

Nadia shook her head. "N-no. I was walking home from a nightclub when someone hit me on the back of the head. When I woke up, I was here." She glanced at the slicer, and shuddered. "It wasn't going then. I guess...someone had it hooked up to a kind of remote control."

That certainly fit with everything else I'd seen. Sneaking around behind people to slam doors shut was too risky; it was much easier to just push a button. It also made things a little nastier for us; after all the time I've spent with the rest of the Team, I'm well aware of how unpleasant a remote controlled booby trap can be. I guess it wasn't too surprising, now that I think about it. The female mind is often a mystery to me, but I was pretty sure that even the most repressed, downtrodden woman – or girl, in this case – would not allow herself to be strapped to a timber slicer without putting up some kind of a fight.

"A nightclub?" I raised my eyebrows. "You're kinda young for that, aren't you?"

Nadia bit her lip, looking even younger. "Don't tell my mom, okay? She'd kill me."

I thought this girl had her priorities a little skewed – here we were, set up for a long, tortuous death, and all she could think about was how to avoid being grounded – but I didn't say so.

"My lips are sealed, honey. Now, what do you say we get outta here?"

Nadia stared up at me. "Do you know the way out?"

I didn't have a clue, but I wasn't about to say that to her. "Well, I know it's not back that way, so I guess it must be this way."

I kept a wary eye out as we walked down the corridor, but there was no sign of any more booby traps. Instead of feeling relieved, this just put me more on edge. I couldn't help thinking of something Hannibal had once told me in Vietnam: _if you're in enemy territory and there's no sign of the enemy, either the guy with the map screwed up or you're walking into the mother of all ambushes_.

What was I walking into?

And now I had Nadia to watch out for. I wasn't sorry I'd saved her – how could I be – but having a fifteen year old kid to keep safe was likely to complicate matters a little. For one thing, some of my more graphic plans for the person behind all this would have to be put on hold. I guess that was a good thing, though; it would give me a little time to collect what I needed for those plans. Even for such a talented acquisitions specialist as myself, piranha fish and hammerhead sharks are not easy to come by.

Neither of us spoke as we walked along. I guess there was nothing to say. Any kind of banal chit-chat such as _where do you live _could wait until we got out of here...if we got out.

It was a little creepy though, being with a fifteen year old girl who didn't say anything. I mean, some of our past clients have had fifteen or sixteen year old daughters and I usually become the focus of adolescent hormones that take the form of very aggressive chatting and blatant flirting, since at that age they haven't yet learned that less is sometimes more. (For the record, I would also like to say that I have _never_ taken up any of the offers made to me by those kids. Adult women are different; they're old enough to know what they're getting into). Then again, my usual suave appearance had probably suffered a lot since I first woke up here; high stress plus extreme vomiting can do that to a face, no pun intended.

A few minutes of this silent stroll – still no sign of booby traps – brought us to a dead end and a metal door on the right hand wall. Any hopes I may have been cherishing about it being locked (thus offering me a very reasonable excuse not to go through and face whatever was on the other side) were dashed when I turned the handle and the door swung open easily. Like the last two, the room beyond it was completely dark, although thanks to the light above our heads, I could make out something metal gleaming inside.

"What's that?" Nadia whispered.

"I don't know." I glanced over my shoulder. Don't ask me why. I knew now for a fact that we were being watched – and recorded – but I had a nasty, creeping suspicion that we were also being followed. "But I don't think we should hang around here much longer."

I stepped into the room, Nadia following a second or two later. This time I shut the door myself.

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><p><strong>Okay, that's it for this week ;) More will be along very soon ;) In the meantime, hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you read, please review!<strong>


	6. Over the Fences

**AN: Sorry there was no update last Monday; I was in hospital. Fingers crossed it's back to normal now :)**

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><p><strong>Q <strong>**the ****omnipotent ****night ****fury:** Thanks XD I don't mind at all if you want to send me a story, but I think it fair to warn you that there are some kinds of A-Team fic I don't read: namely slash and/or main – ie, Team – character death. I do have other likes and dislikes (not keen on any fic with Amy in, although I'll give it a fair try; there are some good ones out there) but those two are absolute no-nos for me :)

**dawn wilkerson: **Well, I'm more of a novelist than a screenwriter, but thanks :) I'm glad you're enjoying it!

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><p>Why me?<p>

I mean, seriously, _why __me_? Why does all the bad stuff _always_ happen to me? Why can't one of the _other_ members of the A-Team ever get captured and subjected to varying forms of unpleasantness for a change? Why doesn't anyone ever kidnap BA, or Hannibal? Is that really too much to ask?

Sorry. Got a little carried away there. And no, I didn't really want BA or Hannibal to get kidnapped, let alone stuck in a place like this.

Still bugs the designer pants off me, though.

Alright, alright, I'll get on with it! Jeez...

I found the light switch on the wall and pressed it, hoping it really _was_ the light switch and not, say, the switch designed to open a trapdoor and dump me and Nadia into a pool full of electric eels.

There was a soft hum and two fluorescent lights flickered into life above our heads, revealing the latest part of our little gauntlet of hell.

It turned out to be a barbwire fence.

Well, several barbwire fences, actually. It was hard to count them from the front, but I guessed there to be about seven or eight – maybe even a couple more – and a door at the far end. That was clear enough; if we wanted out, we'd have to find a way over or through the fences.

I turned to check on the door we'd just come through. Locked. Doors seemed to do that in this place; they let you through only to lock themselves behind you. Was there a way to lock doors by remote control? Or did some doors lock automatically when you closed them? I still couldn't shake the feeling that we were being followed, but if they'd followed us closely enough to lock the door in the thirty seconds or so since I'd shut it, I was sure I would have known about them.

With no other immediate options, I examined the first fence more closely, listening for the telltale hum of electricity. I guess if it was electrified, I might be safe if I jumped up onto it, but I wasn't willing to risk it. I've heard people say it's possible to climb electric fences without getting a shock so long as you don't come in contact with the ground, but funnily enough, none of those people have ever seemed too keen to try it out.

I inched closer. There was nothing; no electric buzz, no faint smell of ozone (although I wouldn't expect that unless I was standing right next to the power source) and I risked reaching out and grasping it with one hand.

When it failed to blast me across the room, I tried another hand. Still safe. I glanced back at Nadia, who had kept a wary distance, and said, "I think it's okay."

Nadia hesitated. "So...we have to climb these fences? That's it? Doesn't that seem a little too, well, simple?"

Looking back on it, I guess it did. But then, most things in life _are_ simple. Becoming a major Hollywood star is simple: all you need to do is get the lead role in a few blockbuster movies. Becoming a multimillionaire is simple: you just invent something everyone wants and sell it to them, or buy a winning lottery ticket. _Simple _doesn't mean _easy_.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that thinking about all this was probably why I made the mistake of saying what I said next.

"Nah, it'll be fine. Trust me. I've done this before."

I'd also like to point out that I wasn't feeling anywhere near as light-hearted as this probably makes me sound. I was just trying to put a brave face on it for Nadia's sake. I don't think it helped, but equally I don't think that _Yeah, __you're __right, __there __must __be __some __kinda __trap __here __and __we're __both __gonna __die __in __this __room_ would have been much use either.

I studied the walls on either side of us, as far as I could. There's nothing like a near-death experience to make you paranoid, and the blades in that corridor had been pretty near. I wanted to make sure there were no nasty little holes through which a conveniently placed gun could be fired.

Unable to find any, I returned my attention to the fences and shifted my weight uneasily. Climbing barbwire fences isn't exactly _difficult_, but it's not the kind of job you can rush either. It takes time, and _time_ was something I didn't think we had.

I examined my bag, trying to work out if what I had in there would be much use here. Net contents: one rutabaga costume and one plastic spear for BA which I'd forgotten about until now.

I pulled the spear out and looked at it. Maybe I could use it to prop up the bottom line of wire. Both Nadia and I were slim; I thought we could both wriggle under the wire without too much trouble.

A little experimentation on my part soon put paid to that idea and very nearly snapped the spear into the bargain. The fencing was strung tightly, which was good from a climbing point of view – it meant there was very little chance that it would bend back on top of us if we tried – but too stiff to lift up, and the spear was too weak to support it. Oh well. It had been worth a try. Looked like it was going to be back to basics.

Stripping my t-shirt off and trying very hard not to think about the fact that I was doing so in front of an adolescent girl (while I'm not interested in them until they're old enough to at least vote, most of them seem very interested in _me_), I tossed it up over the top of the fence. It caught, and hung there.

Nadia looked up at it with interest. "What's that for?"

"Ah." I held up a hand in my best _watch-me-show-off _pose (as Hannibal would call it; me, I don't think that going first to test the safety of a brilliantly constructed safety device counts as showing off) and started to climb the fence, throwing my whole weight back in an effort to stop my arms and stomach getting scratched. It worked; the fence sagged a little, but was strong enough to support my weight.

At the top, I levered myself over, the t-shirt protecting me from the worst of the barbs, and hung for a few seconds before dropping the five feet or so to the ground. All in all, I was pretty impressed with myself, particularly when you consider I'd done the climbing with that damn costume in a bag. Hannibal better appreciate everything I was going through to bring him this stupid rutabaga outfit.

Turning back, I looked at Nadia.

"Think you can..."

The words died in my throat as she hauled herself easily to the top, swung over with a lot more grace than me, much as I hated to admit it, and then dropped neatly next to me.

"Not bad," I allowed. Hey, I can't help it if I'm competitive. It's in my nature; if you're not the best, the fastest and the smartest kid, nobody's gonna want to adopt you, or at least that was what we were always taught.

"Thanks." Nadia handed me my t-shirt and watched as I threw it onto the next fence. This wasn't turning out to be too bad. Of course, it helped that we were both fit and I was ex-Army with a sadistic commander who insisted on forcing me over various obstacle courses and up and down cargo nets. This room would probably be torture if you were out of shape.

Well, if I got out of this in one piece, I would never, ever complain about those obstacle courses again. At least, not to the others. I never complain about them to Hannibal because he just says that I obviously haven't done it enough to appreciate the work he put into setting them up and I wind up having to do another circuit.

Still, like I said, I thought we could probably get through this room without anything too bad happening. I should have known better.

We were on the fourth fence when it happened. This time I'd sent Nadia over first, not because I had any idea of using her as some kind of human shield (come on, even I'm not that self-centered!) but because my t-shirt was starting to look distinctly the worse for wear and I wanted her to get the most protection from it before it gave up completely.

Again, Nadia scampered up the fence like a monkey, swung herself over the top and dropped neatly to the ground.

"You know, you're pretty good at this," I told her, a little more sincerely than last time.

Nadia shrugged. "I like gymnastics. I was all set to try out for the high school team this year, only..."

Her voice tailed off and she looked away as I started climbing.

"Only what?" I asked, and immediately kicked myself. I knew _what_; she'd been grabbed, kidnapped and strapped to a timber slicer. Well, even someone as eloquent and well-spoken as me can say the wrong thing occasionally.

I was just working out an adequate sounding apology in my head when my t-shirt ripped and I tumbled to the ground a lot less elegantly than Nadia.

"Face? Are you okay?"

At least she didn't sound like she was trying not to laugh. I pushed myself to my feet and glanced up at the shredded t-shirt.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think the t-shirt's had it, though."

Nadia glanced up at the fence as if trying to work out the best way of climbing it without protection.

"What do we do?"

An idea hit me and I grinned, holding up the bag with Hannibal's costume in it. "We improvise."

Hannibal's rutabaga costume was not a good choice for California, being stuffed full of thick padding and extra material (I told you I was pissed at him; it was just a shame they'd sold out of pumpkin costumes).

It was, however, an excellent choice for climbing over several barbwire fences. I didn't think he'd mind my using it to stay alive; he's usually pretty understanding about life-and-death situations. I used the nearest fence to rip it open, then reached in and pulled out what looked like yards of material.

Nadia was staring at me, wearing the expression of someone who isn't sure she wants to know. "Uh..."

"Halloween costume for a friend of mine." I examined the material more closely: thin gauze. Well, it would do, if I layered it thickly enough. At least it looked like there was enough to take us over the rest of the fences.

"_Halloween_?"

I glanced at her, surprised. "Yeah, it's tomorrow. Or it _was_. Probably tonight now; I'm not sure how long I've been in here. Why?" I frowned slightly as I thought about this for the first time. "How long have _you_ been in here?"

Nadia shook her head, looking unsure. "I...don't know. Days, maybe. Weeks? I remember waking up in a small room. I don't know how long I was there. Someone kept shoving food through a small hole in the door but I never saw who it was."

I frowned a little. "Wait a minute. When I found you on that slicer you told me you were walking back from a nightclub when someone hit you on the head and when you woke up you were there."

"I meant there as in this place, not on that...thing." Nadia shivered. "Can we keep going? I don't think it's a good idea to stand around for long."

I nodded. "Sure. I think we've got enough padding here for the rest."

"Good. It smells nice in here, but I still don't want to stay."

I finished throwing the padding on the top of the next fence and stared at her. "Smells nice?"

She nodded. "Uh huh. Can't you smell it? Like ripe fruit."

Now she mentioned it, I _could_ smell it; a faint, sweet smell that made a large chunk of my insides freeze. My outsides, however, had more sense and before I was really aware of it I'd ripped off a huge piece of costume material – not from the inside, which probably wasn't thick enough, but the external fabric – and shoved it at her.

"Uh..."

"Wrap it around your mouth and nose and _move_! _Now_!" I snapped when she hesitated. I was already tearing another strip of fabric off for myself. Like fruity smelling white sap (apricot-smelling, to be precise; ninety nine point nine percent of jungle vegetation with apricot-smelling sap is highly poisonous. And Hannibal thought I didn't pay attention to his lectures!) the sudden smell of fruit where there is no fruit is enough to stop a soldier in his tracks. Not for very long though.

Not if he wants to live. Fruit smell means gas. Gas means death.

I know that look. You're rolling your eyes and thinking, _Gee, __Face, __they __could __just __have __been __trying __to __psych __you __out __with __the __latest __in __fruity __air __fresheners. _Fair point. It's even a likely one; so far all I'd encountered were simple mechanical devices. Manufacturing nerve gas or tear gas is a far more specialized field; I'm not sure whether it would take longer to learn how to make it or to find a cache and work out how to steal it. I'm also not sure how you make any kind of gas like that without inhaling it yourself, but that wasn't important just then.

The trouble was, it's a lot harder to override instincts than it is intelligence. It's like the soldiers who hit the deck whenever they hear a car backfire. Instinct and training both throw them flat on the floor, even as intelligence tells them that it's okay, that they're an American soldier on American soil and so they're safe from hostilities (at least, that's the theory; the poor saps who managed to drag themselves back from Vietnam alive weren't too popular at home, by all accounts).

If you want a more practical example, find a realistic looking plastic spider and put it on your table, then invite your arachnophobic neighbor around for a coffee. I guarantee that when they see that plastic spider, they're not going to hang around waiting to find out whether or not it's real; they're going to get out your kitchen so fast they'll leave smoke trails. Instinct trumps intelligence every time. I mean, come on, would _you_ take the risk?

Nadia didn't seem too worried, or rather, she was only nervous because I was. I'd seen victims of nerve agents in Vietnam. Believe me, it's not a nice way to die. I still wasn't sure if whatever was pumping into the room was lethal, but I doubted it would be good.

"Go!" I pushed her toward the fence and nearly impaled her on it before taking my own advice and scrambling up that fence as fast as my already burning muscles would allow.

Nadia was up and over in a flash, then she turned back and her eyes widened as she saw I'd left the bag behind.

"What about the costume?"

"_Damn_ the costume! We don't have time to wrap every damn fence, now _move __it_!" I wasn't sure how much of my speech was intelligible through my makeshift gas mask, so I accompanied it with a pointing finger and my best officer glare. I have a very good glare, if I say so myself.

It seemed to work; Nadia turned and clambered up the sixth fence and that was when I got my first taste of whatever was pumping into that room and my lungs turned to fire.

It was like nothing I'd ever experienced, and I'd done the gas mask test in Basic just like every other soldier. Breathing was agony, like someone had wrapped several cords of that barbwire around my lungs and suddenly yanked them tight. I stumbled forward, right into Fence Number Six. Barbs stuck into my skin, but I was hardly aware of them. It wasn't until much later when I finally saw my reflection and how close I had come that I would thank my lucky stars that one of them hadn't pierced my eyes.

At the moment, I was still working on pure instinct and clambered up the fence, acquiring several more scratches along the way. I was vaguely aware of Nadia ahead...was she slowing down? It looked like it, although that may have been my imagination.

Fence seven. Up and over. My vision was wobbling crazily – so was my body, if it came to it – and I didn't reach the last fence so much as collapse against it.

_One more. C'mon kid. You can do it. This person doesn't seem to use the same tricks twice, so whatever's on the other side of that door, it's not going to be more gas._

My Hannibal-Voice again. Goddamn him. Couldn't he even let me be gassed to death in peace?

_Move it, Lieutenant. You're Special Forces; start acting like it._

I moved one hand up and squeezed the wire tightly. I think I gripped one of the barbs, but I was too far out of it to really notice. If I moved, maybe Hannibal would shut up.

Muscles and lungs burning, I dragged myself over the last one, misjudged the distance to the ground and landed badly. Pain shot up my ankle and I collapsed again.

We weren't going to make it. My watering eyes could see three doors and I wasn't sure which one to open, but I guess it didn't matter since I was coughing too hard to make it any further. I could dimly see Nadia, who had made it to the door but seemed to be struggling with the handle. I hoped this was the end of the gauntlet, that at least she'd make it out.

The door opened with a _clang_ that sounded like a death knell. I could make out a figure standing there but couldn't see any details.

_This is it. You failed. You're dying here and he's come to see the end for himself, right before he presses the Eject button on your death video and sends it straight to Hannibal._

It was the last conscious thought I had before the world faded to black.

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><p><strong>Okay, so hopefully the next part should be up next Monday at around the same time ;) In the meantime, hope you liked this one and if you read, please review!<strong>


	7. Water Water Everywhere

Air! There was air! Okay, it was humid and rather _hot_ air, but it was _air_! I could breathe!

Did I mention the air?

Not that this made everything okay, you understand. My lungs still felt stifled and I wondered if I'd inhaled enough of that stuff to cause permanent damage. As for my eyes...

Actually, maybe I oughta try my eyes, see if I was still seeing triple.

I opened my eyes as far as I could (about a quarter of an inch) and came face to face with my worst nightmare.

"Peck."

"DECKER?"

Okay, so maybe not my _worst_ nightmare. I mean, it wasn't like the one I have about the dark room (don't ask) or the one about the rhinos and the Cheez-Whiz (_really_ don't ask), but it was still pretty bad.

But you know, the funny thing about it was that I wasn't really surprised. Sure Decker was here. It was the only thing that could make this whole experience even worse, after all. And it did have one advantage; seeing him dumped so much adrenalin into my body that I was wide awake and alert in an instant, taking in my surroundings.

The first thing I noticed was that this room was full of water.

Well, not _full_. Not in the sense of floor to ceiling. But there was a slightly raised platform, which the three of us were perched on, and stairs leading out of the water to a door at the far end some fifteen feet away. I had to admit, after the last room, I'd been expecting something a little more, well, frightening. Maybe there were piranhas in there or something.

I hovered a hand over the water but didn't put it in. Even at a distance, I could feel the heat. It wasn't exactly boiling, more like the state water gets to just _before_ it boils. You know, when you can see tiny little bubbles starting to rise to the surface. There was no way any of us were going to be able to swim across without being scalded half to death, and at fifteen feet it was too far to jump.

"What the hell's causing this?" I wondered aloud. I wasn't really expecting an answer, but Nadia spoke up anyway.

"I think it's the mats down there."

I knelt down, gripped the edge tightly and peered over. I could see what she was talking about; several strips of a black substance had been placed on the floor beneath.

"They're like underwater heaters or something," Nadia volunteered. "Like people use with tropical fish to keep the water warm."

That made sense. I guessed she had an aquarium at home or something. Funny; I never thought that people used heating mats in tropical fish aquariums, but then, I'd never kept tropical fish. I did catch a small brown fish in the pond once and tried to keep it in a jar, but it died after two days and one of the nuns flushed it down the toilet. I'd missed that little fish.

I let out a barely audible groan. My thoughts were beginning to fog over, and I couldn't tell whether it was because of the gas or exhaustion or mental strain or what.

"Great," was what I said aloud. "Well, you guys let me know if Flipper shows up and offers us a ride over or something."

Nadia (I noticed she didn't seem too badly affected by the gas) shook her head. "I think we're supposed to use that."

I looked to where she was pointing. It wasn't easy – my vision kept dancing in and out of focus – but eventually I managed to make out...a boat?

I blinked hard and shook my head a few times, which seemed to help with the vision. At least I wasn't seeing triple anymore. And yes, that was definitely a boat. The trouble was, it was on the other side of the water.

I stared at it. "Well, great, but how did it end up over there?"

Decker shrugged. "Drifted."

"_Drifted_? Ten feet?" I shook my head. "How? This is like a swimming pool, Decker! There are no currents or waves for it to drift _on_! Do you at least have any idea where we are? I mean where this building is?"

A beat, then Decker shook his head. I could read him like a book: he didn't like talking to me, he didn't like not being able to arrest me, but he wasn't stupid or stubborn enough to let that stand in his way. We were both trapped here. It didn't look like we had much choice but to work together.

"No. Someone hit me from behind."

"You too, huh? Did you wake up in here?"

Another head shake. "No. I was in a room full of bags."

I nodded, hesitated, then turned to face him fully. "That wouldn't be the same room full of bags with a certain blade infested corridor, would it?"

"Yeah."

"How'd you get through it?"

He blinked, then seemed to decide the question wasn't too personal to answer.

"I used the desk."

My heart dropped. "Desk?"

"Yeah. It had wheels on the legs, along with several cuts in the wood, so I figured that was my way out. I sat on top and pushed myself along. Why? Did you find another way?"

"No. I was just hoping _you_ had." Well, there was no way I was going to tell him I'd overlooked something like _that_. Anyway, my way was cooler. "But there must be another way. That desk was back in its place when I woke up there, which means means that whoever's doing this has some way of getting to the rooms which doesn't involve the main doors. Between your going through them and _my_ going through them, that person found a way to sneak in and reset all the rooms."

Decker considered this, then nodded reluctantly. "Yes, that makes sense. And...you and I being here, that can't be a coincidence. Whoever did this must know we're enemies."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, Decker. Half a dozen Wanted posters on every street corner with my picture and the words PLEASE CALL COLONEL DECKER scrawled underneath...yeah, we're dealing with a real mind here. What happened? They call that hotline and lure you to a remote little out of the way place with the promise of getting your hands on us?"

Decker apparently decided not to dignify that with an answer, which was as good a way as any of telling me that that's exactly how it _had_happened.

"Okay. Yeah, I get it. What happened to the others?"

Decker half turned to look at me. "Others?"

"Oh, come on, Decker; you _never_ go after us by yourself! Even you're not that arrogant. What about Crane and your little MP lackeys? What happened to them?"

"I was called about you, Peck, not the rest of your team, and I don't need backup to bring a pretty-boy like you in."

I glared at him. I don't mind the rest of the Team ribbing me about enjoying the finer things in life, but I was damned if I was going to take it from this guy.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Decker! Do you think I got my Special Forces beret out of a Christmas cracker? Do you think those guys would have even _considered_ taking me if I crumpled into a little puddle of angst and insecurity and bawled my eyes out every time things didn't go the way I wanted?"

Decker shrugged. "There was a war on, Peck. I imagine they had to take what they could get, even if that included the dregs."

I really was going to punch him if he went on like this. I wasn't sure who'd come out the best in a fistfight – Decker was the more experienced soldier, but being a part of the A-Team meant I probably got in a whole lot more practice – but I was willing to find out.

"One more word outta you and I'll—" My voice degenerated into a coughing fit as I moved too quickly and I sank against the wall, dire threats unspoken. Guess my lungs weren't quite clear yet.

Decker raised his eyebrows. "Fine, Peck. You do that."

I glared at him, then down to where my hand had landed on a rock. Well, more like a brick, actually. I picked it up and showed it to Decker.

"Did you bring this along?"

He looked surprised. "No. Where did you find it?"

"Right here on the floor." I looked at the brick, then at the boat and an idea came to mind. "Decker? Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but I'm gonna need you to take your clothes off."

He folded his arms and stared at me, jaw set in an obstinate line. "Was there a _right_ way to take that, Peck?"

"I need your clothes."

"Oh, you do, huh? I see. And what's wrong with yours?"

"Nothing, I guess, except I've already taken off about all I can take off! I used up my t-shirt getting over those fences and my pants are shot to hell! There's a good chance we're going to come face to face with whoever's behind this at some point and when that happens, I don't wanna be in my underwear! Look, Decker, it's you or Nadia, and if you're suggesting I ask a fifteen year old girl to take _her_ clothes off, you're even crazier than I thought!"

That convinced him, as I knew it would. Decker might be crazy and utterly ruthless, but when it comes to females, he's pretty honorable. I was sure that even if I died, he'd do his utmost to get Nadia out safely.

Shrugging off his top, he handed it to me. I grabbed it and held out my other hand, flexing the fingers in a _gimme-gimme_ gesture.

"And the rest of it! I'm outta clothes and if I have to go topless here, I don't see why you shouldn't."

Scowling, Decker did as I said. Well, it was too humid to wear much in this room anyway.

"Okay. Nadia? Hand me that rock over there, would you?"

Nadia obeyed. The rock in question was about the size of a brick. It would do nicely for what I had in mind.

Taking hold of Decker's clothes, I ripped them into strips and tied those strips together to make a rope, then tied that rope around the rock. It didn't take Decker long to figure out my plan.

"Do you really expect this to work, Peck?"

"Do _you_ have a better idea?"

"What happens if you sink the boat?"

I gave him my best impression of the Hannibal Stare. It deserves the capital letter; the Stare has the ability to silence any junior officer who dares to criticize Hannibal.

"What would have happened if I hadn't thought this up? Decker, right now we're stuck on the wrong side of a deadly lake with a boat we can't get to, and if I sink it we'll _still_ be stuck on the wrong side of a deadly lake with a boat we can't get to, so I fail to see how it would make even the _tiniest_ bit of difference to our situation! Now shut up while I try to aim this thing."

I aimed. And missed. Several times. Why the hell Hannibal never thought to include a Hooking-Boat-With-Makeshift-Rope-And-Brick section on his training courses was beyond me. I mean, just think how useful it would have been in a situation like this!

"So—" Decker's voice was neutral as I whirled the brick around for another try, but I _knew_, just _knew_ he was smirking— "how's it going?"

"What do you mean, how's it going? You can _see_ how it's going, Decker, and if you want to take over at any time, be my guest!" I turned to glare at him and accidentally let fly with the brick, which landed perfectly in the boat.

Trying very hard to look as though I'd planned this, I glanced down at the makeshift rope in my hands, then up at Decker.

"Alright. I suggest we put our differences aside, we work together and we get outta here. In case it slipped your notice, Decker, you can't arrest me when you're dead and you can't arrest me when _I'm_ dead either!"

Decker stared at me, lip curled. "Do you really think you're in a position to bargain with me, Peck?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, let me see. We're trapped on a man-made island that none of us can swim away from, and I'm holding the only available boat. Yeah, Decker, I think that puts me in a pretty strong bargaining position. I'll help you on one condition: you take off for the rest of the year. Head for New York, or Texas, or Philadelphia, or some place we're not gonna be and don't pick up our trail again until January, and that includes not arresting me the second we escape. And stay out of Chicago, okay? I think BA'd like to visit his mom for Christmas this one time."

"We'll see, Peck."

I'd heard that one before, although admittedly not from him. As a child I'd learned very quickly that _we'll __see_ meant _the __answer's __no, __but __I __don't __have __the __balls __to __tell __you_. One of the reasons my teenage self had been so fascinated by Hannibal when we'd first met was that he always gave me a straight answer to any question I had, even if that answer was sometimes _that's __none __of __your __business, __Lieutenant_.

"Decker, if you have any illusions about grabbing the rope off me, let me just point out that I can throw it into the middle of this water faster than you can get to me."

When he didn't answer, I hauled the boat in. It was small, but sturdy, and I thought it would take the three of us easily.

It wasn't until the three of us had actually _boarded_ the damn thing that Nadia raised her hand as if she was in class.

"Um. Face?"

"Yeah?"

"This is a really nice boat and everything, but how do you make it move?"

I opened my mouth, paused as her question hit me like a freight train and then shut it again.

"Well, we...uh...we just..." I hesitated and then did the unthinkable. "Decker?"

Decker looked cruelly amused as he answered, "Don't look at me, Peck; you were the one who was so determined to get the thing. I assumed you knew how to get it moving."

I glanced at the exit, then at the railings, then at my brick and rope combination. Well...why not?

I threw it twice before Decker caught hold of my wrist.

"Alright, enough of this. Peck, if we wait for you to throw the damn thing accurately, we'll be here until doomsday! Give it to me."

"What? No! No, I think I've got my eye in now." I _also_ thought that I wasn't happy about putting a brick in Decker's hand all the time I was within striking distance.

I didn't have any choice, however, since Decker wrested it out of my hand, spun it a few times and then threw it. The brick flew through two of the railings and caught on one. Handing the end of the makeshift rope back to me, Decker sat back and folded his arms.

"_My_ eye was never out, Peck."

"Lucky shot, Decker." I pulled the rope very gingerly, not wanting to jerk the brick free, and the boat moved through the water while I wondered just where the hell Decker had learned _that_ trick. I mean, seriously, _was_ there a Throwing-Brick-And-Rope Army training course I'd somehow missed out on?

We progressed in silence through the water. I don't know what was going through Decker's mind, but what was going through _mine_ was that the silent travel by boat in a hot, humid environment while being watched by unfriendly eyes was far too much like Vietnam for my liking. I'm not saying I had flashbacks or anything – that's Murdock's department, not mine – but still, I was glad to reach the other side.

I was less glad when I realized that the stairs were attached to a platform, and the platform was underwater. I didn't think it was deep underwater, just deep enough to scald the soles of your feet.

Steadying myself with one hand on Nadia's shoulder (I didn't trust Decker not to throw me in the water) I put a tentative foot on the platform.

I'd been right; the Army boots I was wearing were high enough to protect me from the worst of it. Pushing up a little, I stepped fully onto the platform. A few seconds later, Decker joined me and then we both turned to look at Nadia, who was still sitting in the boat and wearing open-toed and very flat sandals. Good for partying, I've no doubt, and she could probably run faster in them than in a pair of heels, but no good for, say, protecting her feet from a thin layer of boiling water.

I met Decker's stare again. "Alright. You can carry her to the door."

Decker raised his eyebrows. "Oh really? Why me?"

Something inside me snapped and I turned. He wasn't wearing any clothes I could grab and use to pull him into me, so I used his throat instead.

"Because, as you with your expertise in psychology pointed out, one tiny little hint of pressure or physical pain and I'm going to curl up into a fetal position and sob about how unloved I am and how everyone I care for always abandons me! That's what I do, right Decker? You know, maybe you should change the wording on those damn posters of yours: _First __Lieutenant __Templeton __"Faceman" __Peck, __Ex-Green __Beret, __AKA __the __Whiny, __Radically __Insecure __Little __Crybaby __Of __The __Team_. That's _First __Lieutenant_, by the way, not _Captain_. You know, I love promotions as much as the next soldier, but if you're going to hunt me and my friends down for a crime we didn't commit, you can damn well get my name and rank right!"

There was a long, dangerous silence, then Decker said tightly, "I shouldn't have said that, Peck."

It was the closest I'd ever got to an actual apology from the guy, and pure shock caused me to lower my hands and back off a step. Stupid move, but Decker didn't try and jump me. I think on some level he knew what he'd done: you do not insult another soldier's unit. Not seriously; there's a certain amount of friendly rivalry between various Army units and some not-so-friendly rivalry between the Army and the Navy, and the Marines.

Much as I hated having him here, though, I had to admit that Decker's presence was good in one respect: it meant that once we were out of here, I could abandon Nadia. I wouldn't be leaving her in very polite company, but I knew Decker wouldn't hurt her and he'd make sure she got home safely, which would buy me enough time to make sure that _I_ could get home safely as well.

I walked up to the door and examined it for wires. An electrified door in a room full of water seemed very much in keeping with the general theme of this place.

I couldn't see any, but that didn't mean the door was safe.

_Alright, __kid_, Hannibal-Voice spoke up. _Think. __There's __got __to __be __a __way __you __can __trick __Decker __into __opening __the __door __for __you_.

Actually...on second thoughts, Hannibal probably wouldn't have said that. I thought of that scene in _Macbeth_, where neither character trusts the other enough to go through a door ahead of him. How had they solved that in the end?

Oh right; they'd walked side by side.

I looked at the door, then at Decker – who had just deposited Nadia on the steps – then back at the door. Nope. Not an option; if we walked side by side through _this_ door, we'd just wind up getting stuck in it. I was sure Decker wouldn't trust me behind him and I knew damn well I didn't trust him behind _me_, so that only left one option.

"Alright. Well, I don't think the door's booby-trapped or anything, so I tell you what, Decker. You go first, Nadia can go in the middle and I'll bring up the rear."

"Right, and have you slam the door the minute we're through it."

I met Decker's gaze squarely. "Doors tend to slam on their own in this place, or hadn't you noticed?"

"Forget it, Peck. You're expendable. _You_ go through first."

We might have gone on like this all day (or night; I had no idea what time it was) but Nadia, with a guttural exclamation that sounded suspiciously like, "Men!" pushed past Decker and me, opened the door and stepped through it.

About two seconds later, she screamed.

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><p><strong>Okay, so that's it for this chapter :) Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!<strong>


	8. Mirror Image

**Q the omnipotent night fury:** *blushes* Thanks :) Information...well, that comes from a lot of trawling through other websites or, in the case of Face and the comment about apricots, an SAS survival manual ;)

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><p>I was right. There wasn't room for me and Decker to go through the door at the same time without getting wedged in it. I managed to get free and through the door first, partly because of the practice I've had at this kind of thing with Murdock (breaking him out the VA doesn't <em>always<em> go smoothly) partly because I don't think Decker really wanted to be first through that door, and partly, of course, because I stamped on his foot.

I don't know what I was expecting. Swinging Pendulums of Doom, maybe? The ceiling falling on my head? A huge pit full of knives?

It turned out to be a restroom. A filthy restroom – the amount of mold on the ceiling and creeping down the walls was frightening in itself – but still just a restroom. Maybe this one was more of a puzzle than a booby trap. I mean, the freezer full of all those limbs hadn't been _dangerous_in the same way as the barbwire or that corridor. Seriously disturbing, sure, but not dangerous.

I looked around for Nadia and saw her pressed against the wall, eyes wide as she stared down at the body on the floor. Well, kinda on the floor. It was propped in a sitting position with its back against one of the sinks, facing the door, and I wasn't sure if the person had died like that or if someone had repositioned it for maximum effect.

"Nadia? Are you okay?"

She nodded, although she sure didn't _look_ okay; her face was white and she was gulping in air a little too fast.

"Hey!" I caught hold of her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake, waiting until she focused fully on me before speaking again. "Are you okay?"

Another, firmer nod. "Y-yes. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...it was just a shock."

That I could well believe. This person hadn't died quickly; the body was no more than a mass of severe burns, some right down to the flesh beneath.

Decker, who had followed me in, looked down at the body. "Looks like he tried to swim. I guess he made it too, before the shock and the burns killed him in here."

I frowned. "Who is he?"

The colonel stared at me. "_Is_?"

"You know what I mean!"

Decker shook his head. "I've really no idea, Peck. What do you want us to do, hold a séance and ask him? What difference does it make, anyway?"

I straightened up and glared at him. "It makes a difference because if we knew who he was, we could try and remember if he'd gone missing and if there had been any ransom notes or anything, and _that_ might tell us who's behind all this!"

He stared at me, then said in a quieter voice, "You know who's behind all this, Peck, just as well as I do. I thought it might be Smith until I found that damn corridor. I hate to admit it, but this whole set up isn't his style."

That wasn't quite true; sneaking into your home and booby-trapping it while you're asleep to check your levels of alertness when you wake up is very much Hannibal's style, but his traps are never fatal, and very rarely painful except to your ego. For the record, I still say the tomatoes were overkill. Does that guy have any idea how hard it is to get tomato juice out of a shirt? And who's crazy enough to try and turn fruit and vegetables into ballistic projectiles, anyway?

Well, yeah, okay, _obviously_ Hannibal. I just don't think it's something we're likely to run into from the bad guys.

Nadia was looking from one of us to the other, then she said, "Well, _I_ don't. Who's doing this?"

I frowned. "You don't know?"

"I just said that, didn't I? Who is it?"

It seemed incredible that it could have passed her by, but then, I guess not many fifteen year olds bother to read the newspapers. I glanced at Decker.

"Well, you brought it up, Colonel. You explain it to her. I'm going to make use of the facilities."

Decker's jaw dropped. "You're going to _what_?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Problem?"

"Peck, every room we've been in so far has had some kind of booby trap."

"Mm-hm. And how exactly does one go about booby-trapping a toilet stall?"

"Your _making __use __of __the __facilities, _Lieutenant, might easily interfere with getting us out of this room. Did you ever stop to think about that?"

I stared at him, wondering if his mind had been knocked off-kilter. I mean, he was already pretty unbalanced; it probably wouldn't take much to tip him over the edge.

"What are you saying, Decker? That we gotta flush the toilets in a certain order to open the door?" Shaking my head in a despairing way (or at least in a way that I _meant_ to be despairing) I walked into the stall and shut the door. I did think about letting out my best blood-curdling scream of terror (I have quite a good one, if I say so myself) but reluctantly suppressed the urge. If it had been just me and Decker, I might have considered it, but it wasn't fair to play a trick like that on Nadia.

I finished my business, then reached out and flushed. Nothing bad happened to me, and so I walked out and washed my hands. I splashed some of that water on my face as well; I was still having the odd dizzy spell from the gas, maybe the water would help that.

I glanced at Decker over my shoulder, noticing that he didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects.

"Hey Decker? How long did it take you to recover from the gas?"

He looked surprised, or as surprised as he ever gets. "What gas?"

"The gas in that barbwire room."

"There was no gas in that room, Peck. At least, not while I was in there."

I stared at him, not wanting to believe but having no choice. Decker was a soldier; he'd know those smells as well as I did, if not better.

"Well, there was while _we_ were in there! How'd you miss it?"

Decker shrugged. "I've no idea. Best guess is that the gas works on some kind of timer and I got through the room and safely out before the timer kicked in. Like the doors."

I blinked at him. "The doors? You think the doors are on a timer?"

"I think if someone followed me closely enough to slam doors behind me, I'd know they were there."

I wasn't going to argue with that. After my time in Vietnam and everything that followed, I was good at knowing if someone was coming after me too. All veterans are, and Decker not only had Vietnam but Korea on his score card.

"Maybe. Maybe both. How is a door supposed to know how many of us there are or that we've all gone through it? Okay, we can't get back through this door—" I jerked my thumb over my shoulder— "but how did it know that one of us didn't stay behind to open it if it slammed? And you didn't smell anything in that barbwire room? Not even a kind of fruity smell?"

He shook his head. "No. Nothing."

"Weird." I frowned. "But...well, you were right. You and me being here can't be coincidence. Maybe he wants to see if we'll kill each other before one of his nasty little traps does the job for us."

Decker looked at me levelly. "Then why put us in here separately? Why not put us both in that starting room together?"

Wonderful. Another great theory torpedoed. "Maybe he thought you'd wait."

"I guess he didn't know me very well, then."

"Well, no. If he knew you very well, like as a friend, then all he'd have to do would be to call you and ask you to come over and watch the game and then hit you as soon as you arrived." My frown deepened. "Alright. Let me see if I've got this straight. You were hit on the head and when you woke up you were in the room with that booby-trapped corridor. You sat on the desk and used it to carry you through that corridor without getting sliced to pieces. Then I'm assuming you went into the freezer room with all the bodies. You emptied the freezer and climbed down. You then went past the timber slicer." I didn't need to ask if it had been unoccupied. Decker may be crazy, he may be ruthless, but he's not essentially _bad,_and I knew for a fact that he would no more have left Nadia strapped to that machine than I would. "You opened the next door and climbed over all those barbwire fences without being gassed, then found yourself in the room we've just left, where you were stuck until the door opened. You dragged me and Nadia into that room, the door slammed shut behind us and now here we are. Am I right?"

"More or less."

"Okay. Well, I don't know about you, but I vote we don't give him the satisfaction of seeing us tear each other to pieces. I think surviving's going to be hard enough without having to be on guard from each other as well. You agree?"

A tight pause, then Decker nodded once.

"Good. Great." I stuck out my hand. "Shake on it?"

He looked at me, lip curled. "Don't push your luck, Peck."

I dropped my hand again rather hurriedly. "Right. Sure. So. Any thoughts on getting through the door?"

Decker shrugged. "I've no idea, Lieutenant. Do we even know it's locked? The other doors into various deathtraps haven't been."

There was a pause as we all considered this, then I gestured Decker toward the door. I'd planned to deliver my best smug look when it turned out to be locked, and was consequently disgusted when the handle turned easily in his hand and the door opened. Not wanting to have to see _Decker's_ best smug look (and I was sure he was wearing one; guy never could resist a good gloat) I turned away, caught sight of my reflection and groaned.

Oh god. When was the last time I'd looked _this_ bad? My hair was a complete mess, there was a slightly wild look in my eye and my face – most of my torso and arms, in fact – was covered in small shallow cuts from those damn barbwire fences.

"Oh boy." I finger combed my hair rapidly, trying to get it into some sort of order.

"Peck!" Decker hissed at me. "Move it! We don't have time for you to hang around preening!"

I barely heard him, my mind more focused on the cuts on my face. "Oh _man_. Please tell me those aren't going to scar."

Catching something else in the mirror, I frowned and leaned in to have a closer look, just as Decker gripped me under one arm and yanked me toward the door, and very nearly off my feet as well. "Come _on_!"

I guess it was for the best. This place was definitely getting to me; for a moment when I'd looked in the mirror, I was sure I'd seen a fourth person standing a few feet behind me.

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><p><strong>Okay...I know this one was kinda short, but I figured Face deserved a breather ;) Come next week, they're in for it again (just in time for Decker to display a surprising new talent =P) Until then, hope you enjoyed this and if you read, please review!<strong>


	9. Of Acid and Baseballs

**halfcent:**Thanks :D Glad I got you scared (in a good way, you understand ;))

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><p>I felt a little safer after making that deal with Decker. Not much; just a little. I mean, I didn't trust the guy not to arrest me the instant we got out of here and no longer needed each other, but I didn't think he'd shoot me in the back before that happened. He'd needed me to figure a way out of that water room. He might need me again. He'd also keep me alive; a dead fugitive wasn't worth anything. Alive, I could be locked up or used as bait for Hannibal. Probably it would be the former; we're all too good at rescuing each other for Decker to risk it happening again.<p>

As we walked down a corridor, which was mercifully free of blades (at least, so far) Nadia edged closer to me. "Don't worry about him, Face. You were so brave back in that room; I don't think I could have done what you did."

"Oh. Well, thanks." I racked my brains trying to think of anything I'd done that had been amazingly heroic and drew a blank. "What, uh, what impressed you so much?"

"Well, the fact that there are probably hidden cameras in every room." Nadia shook her head, her expression serious. "I wouldn't have the nerve to go to the bathroom if I knew someone was watching me, let alone recording it."

There was a short pause, during which my insides did their very best to curl up and die, followed by a muffled choking noise from Decker's direction. If I didn't know the guy had absolutely _no_ sense of humor, I would have said he was trying not to laugh.

Nodding toward him, Nadia said, "Why does he call you Peck, anyway?"

I glared at Decker. "Because he's not my friend."

Decker didn't answer. Well, there was absolutely no way he could argue with what I'd said andhe couldn't reveal the ugly truth either. Nadia's only hope of survival was to stick with us and telling her I was a fugitive might frighten her off; too many people equate the word _fugitive_ with the word _rapist_. Then again, even if it _did_ frighten her off, I wasn't sure it would make much difference. After all, it wasn't like she had anywhere to run.

Then _again_, she'd probably figured something out already. Neither Decker or I had bothered to keep our voices down when talking about things like _arrest_ and _Wanted __posters_.

We had almost come to the end of the corridor – there was another closed door ahead of us – when Nadia stopped. So did I, mostly to avoid walking into her; we'd stationed her in the middle partly because neither Decker nor I trusted each other and Nadia was a handy barrier, and partly to try and keep her safe from anything that might charge us or sneak up behind us.

"Are you okay?"

She bit her lip. "I guess. I'm kinda tired, though. Can't we rest for a few minutes?"

I glanced at Decker, who shrugged, then back at Nadia. I guess it wasn't surprising she was feeling the strain. I could go on for a long while yet, and I was certain Decker could as well, but Nadia was only a kid, and in the past few hours, or days, or however long she'd been here (I was still a little puzzled on that score) she'd been subjected to more mental and emotional stress and terror than most people experienced in a lifetime. In that condition, tiredness doesn't always build up; sometimes it just hits you like a brick.

"Yeah, okay. Sure. We can rest for five minutes or so." To tell the truth, I was glad of the pause myself; I wasn't too keen to discover what was on the other side of that door.

Nadia slumped down on the floor, her back against the wall and I moved closer to Decker – who simply looked at me without bothering to acknowledge my existence – and lowered my voice.

"Decker?"

"Hm?"

I paused. The idea of asking _Decker_, of all people, was crazy, but he'd been a soldier for longer than I had.

"Do you get the feeling we're being...well...stalked?"

Decker glanced over to where Nadia was sitting, then lowered his voice.

"Yeah, Peck, I do. In fact, I'd put money on it."

"Ah." That wasn't what I'd wanted to hear. I'd wanted him to comfort me – well, okay, maybe not _comfort_, but at least reassure me that it was all in my head. "Should we, uh, do something?"

Decker shrugged. "I'm open to suggestions, Lieutenant."

I hesitated before speaking again. But...what the hell. Decker already thought I was a ruthless fugitive. If my next question made him think I was crazy, that could even work in my favor. Maybe I could get a room next to Murdock's.

"Do you believe in...well, ghosts?"

I know, I know, it was nuts. But I couldn't get what I'd seen in that mirror out of my mind, or what had happened after that bladed corridor, when I'd been sure there was someone at the far end...someone who had gradually turned to shadow as I got closer.

He didn't look at either of us. "I'm beginning to."

I had no idea what he meant by that, but it wasn't much comfort.

"So what do we do about whoever's behind this?"

Decker shrugged. "Not much we _can _do right now, Peck, unless he decides to come out and try and kill us himself."

I shook my head. "No. That's not the idea. He doesn't want to kill us; he wants to watch us kill ourselves." When Decker didn't react, I pushed a little harder. "Don't you get it? This...this game, if that's what you wanna call it, isn't supposed to be winnable! We've only gotten this far because we're soldiers, not to mention unorthodox as hell!"

"And because the games _are_ winnable, Peck. You got through that gas chamber somehow."

"Only because I had a giant rutabaga costume!"

There was a long silence, broken only by Nadia's giggle. Then Decker's expression unfroze a little and he said, "Peck, I know I'm going to regret asking you this for the rest of my life, but _why_?"

"Hannibal. Well, Hannibal and BA. Well, Hannibal, BA and the daycare center. BA and Hannibal decided to do the whole trick-or-treat thing this year, and so Hannibal sent me out to buy Halloween costumes and I got him a giant rutabaga. I was on my way home when I got attacked. Next thing I know, I'm here, and I lost the costume, which means Hannibal's going to kill me when I get back."

"He may not need to, Peck. Not if the guy behind this gets what he wants."

Nadia stirred a little. "You never told me, who is this guy? Do you know him?"

Decker snorted. "Not personally. He's known to the press as the Voyeur. He brings people to these little deathtraps to watch them die and records it, then sends the videos to the families."

Nadia shivered. "You mean he's really got cameras in every room, just watching us?"

"Not a nice thought, is it?"

I was silent, trying to puzzle something out. I could feel my mind quivering under the stress of this situation, but I persevered. Finally, it hit me and I stared at Nadia.

"How did you know about the bathroom?"

Was it my imagination (or the bad lighting), or did she look slightly edgy. "What? Know what about the bathroom?"

"You just asked Decker if there were cameras in every room, and not five minutes ago you told me you'd never have the nerve to go to the bathroom if you knew someone was watching, let alone recording, and that there are probably hidden cameras in every room. I seem to remember those were your exact words."

"Oh, that. I was only kidding. Well, not really. I mean, I saw the one in the bathroom, but I didn't think there were _really_ others."

Decker glanced at her and I could tell he was now giving her his full attention.

"You saw the camera that was in the bathroom?"

Nadia nodded. "Yes. Of course."

"See, that's what I don't get." I moved up next to Decker, although I was careful to stay out of arm's reach. "I'm a lieutenant in the US Army, and Decker here's a colonel. Both of us were trained to be observational, especially in the Vietnam war – I can't speak for the Korean one, since it ended before I was born. I've been scanning every room for cameras—" which I had, although as unobtrusively as possible— "and _I_ didn't see one in the bathroom. So how did you see it when you didn't even know to look for it?"

Even I could see that Nadia was now looking jittery, although I guess that could have been due to Decker's proximity. He has that effect on people. He's the only guy I've ever met who can make _Hi, __nice __to __meet __you_ sound like a declaration of war.

Instead of crumbling, however, Nadia scrambled to her feet and glared at Decker. "Is that why you dropped me in that gas room? Because you think _I've_ got something to do with this?"

"_What_?" I stared at Decker. "You dropped her?"

"Oh yeah." Nadia's voice was vicious now. "He picked me up and started carrying me toward the door, then he saw you and just dropped me to grab _you_ instead."

"You were gonna _leave_ her there?"

Decker's head snapped round and he glared at me. "No, I wasn't going to leave her, Peck! I just had one hell of a shock!"

"_You_ had one hell of a shock! What the hell do you think _I_ got when I woke up and saw you there? And now you're accusing this poor girl of being responsible! I suppose she was too good for you to know she was there until she hit you on the head and dragged you here! You know, Decker, you might wanna think about what you're saying. I mean, you're an Army colonel. Being knocked out and taken prisoner by a fifteen year old girl isn't the kind of story you want to spread around, know what I mean?" I glanced at the fifteen year old girl in question, only to discover she was now at the other end of the corridor and halfway through the door.

Giving Decker a _we'll-continue-this-later_ look, I went after her. She'd stopped just on the other side, not because she wanted to wait for us but because it was raining in the room beyond. At least, that's what my tired mind thought at first. I even looked up for the clouds before realizing how dumb that was and seeing what was really there.

Three rows of fire sprinklers, mounted in pairs side by side on the ceiling, showering the entire room. There was a door at the other end, with a blinking light above some kind of panel next to it. I moved up past her, suspicious but not sure why yet. A few drops of the liquid spattered on my arm and I jerked back instinctively, but it was fine.

At least, that's what I thought until I felt the itching, burning sensation.

"_Ow_!"

Nadia, who had been about to step under the sprinklers herself, stopped and turned. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"Don't go under those things! Don't even go _near_ them!" I stared at my arm, at the burn there. It wasn't too severe – it would probably heal without much of a trace – but it was bad enough for me not to want any more of my body under there.

"Why not? It's just water."

"It's not _water_, Nadia; it's acid."

She stared at me like I'd just grown an extra head. "_Acid_?"

Decker, who had followed us, took half a step forward and sniffed. "Smells like it. Or something very similar."

Nadia frowned and started to hold out her hand, only to have Decker grab her by the back of her t-shirt and yank her away.

"What are you, _crazy_?"

I glanced up from nursing my poor arm to see Nadia glare at him.

"Oh come on! If that's _really_ acid, then why isn't the floor melting? Why aren't the pipes?"

"Not many acids are that strong. You've been watching too much TV."

She glanced up at the sprinklers, then back at Decker. "I still think it's a trick."

I grabbed her and spun her around a little more roughly than I'd intended, showing her the burn on my arm. "This look like a _trick_ to you, honey?"

"Let me see that." Decker moved toward me and I backed off, matching him step for step.

"Oh no. No way. It's bad enough without _you_ poking at it!"

"I'm not going to hurt you, Lieutenant! Look." Decker raised both his hands, and I stopped. Not because I was convinced, but because I'd just stepped on a baseball and almost lost my footing.

Yes, a baseball. I've no idea what it was doing there or who put it there for a poor unsuspecting lieutenant to tread on, but it was definitely a baseball.

I probably would have fallen (or at least stumbled under the sprinklers) if Decker hadn't caught hold of me and pulled me more or less upright again. Not having much choice about his examining me now – unless I really wanted to fight him, which I preferred to avoid just then – I stood and let him look at my arm.

"It's not too bad. It should heal fine."

"Right, Decker. What are you now, a medic?" I paused, considering this, then added a little more calmly, "Actually, I don't think I ever asked you; what _is_ your medical specialty?"

"Never mind that, Peck." Decker turned away, staring at the door as though willing it to come closer. Maybe he was. I've learned never to put any kind of idea – no matter how nuts – past that guy.

For want of something better to do, I picked up the baseball and turned it over in my hands idly. An idea occurred to me and I glanced at Decker, and took careful aim.

"Hey Decker! Heads up!"

I threw the baseball at him and Decker's hand flashed up and snatched it out the air without him so much as turning his head. Half a second later, the baseball whizzed back at Mach One and nearly knocked me off my feet. I caught it, even though it made my hands sting (I _hate_ baseball; I've always been more of a football kinda guy).

"What do you think that light down there is?" I asked suddenly. I'd been trying to puzzle it out for a while now and I thought I might have it. "Think it could be the control panel for these things?" I jerked a thumb toward the sprinklers and, in doing so, dropped the baseball.

"It's a control panel for something," Decker agreed, "although I don't know what."

Retrieving the baseball before it had time to bounce away from me under the sprinklers, I tossed from hand to hand. "Maybe we're supposed to hit it with this."

"At this distance?"

I shrugged. "Well, I don't know about you, Decker, but I left my bow and arrow at home. I can't think of anything else here except this baseball that would do the trick." I threw the baseball up one-handed, fumbled it, caught it again halfway down, then straightened up and did my very best to look like I'd _meant_ to do that.

Decker, on the other hand, looked like he was waging some kind of internal battle with himself. Rather than interrupt him, I kept quiet and played with my baseball, trying to get up the nerve to throw it at that panel. It wasn't just fear of what the button might do that held me back, but fear of screwing it up. If I missed, we'd lose our only potential means of escape.

"Give me the baseball, Peck." Decker sounded like he was forcing the words out.

"Why? So you can try and brain me with it again? Uh uh. Forget it, Decker."

"I said _give_ it to me!" Decker lunged and grabbed the baseball and, hardly pausing to aim, hurled it overarm at the control panel. It was so fast I barely saw it leave his hand before it hit the button squarely. There was a grinding sound, and the sprinklers juddered to a halt.

I stared at him, jaw dangling. Since when was _Decker_ such a hotshot pitcher?

I didn't get a chance to ask him. With a tight-jawed, stiff-limbed demeanor that said quite clearly _one __word __and __you're __a __dead __man_, Decker strode past us down the hallway, under the lifeless sprinklers and through the door at the far end.

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><p><strong>AN: Okay, I know it's a day early, but I'm out tomorrow night and not likely to be back until late, so I figured I'd post it today instead. Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!<strong>


	10. Patch of Darkness

**Q the omnipotent night fury: **Thanks :D Hope it wasn't _too _distracting for you ;)

**halfcent: **Heh...well, so far Nadia hasn't actually _done_ anything except be a little ambiguous. Of course, it's not over yet ;)

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><p>Part of me was expecting the sprinklers to kick back into life as Nadia and I hurried under them, but they remained lifeless. I guess the button Decker bopped with the baseball turned them off for good, or at least long enough for us to get safely through, which came to the same thing as far as I was concerned.<p>

Decker was waiting for us on the other side. I noticed he'd kept the baseball, but there was still a bristly _hands-off_ aura hanging about him. I opened my mouth.

"Don't say it, Peck."

"I was just gonna ask—"

"I know what you were _just __gonna __ask_. Don't."

I shut my mouth. If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn Decker was _embarrassed_, although I've no idea why. Man, if I could pitch like that, I'd shout it from the rooftops! I guess I shouldn't be surprised, not after the way he'd thrown that makeshift rope and brick back in the water room and hooked it through the fence on the first try, but hey, _anyone_ can get a lucky shot once in a while.

"Well, anyway, you figured out if this room is going to kill us yet?" I tried to inject some levity into my voice. I failed.

Decker shrugged. "I think it's fairly safe, Peck. Just don't step too far forward."

"Huh? What?" I turned to look and realized Decker hadn't been waiting for us; he was stuck. A pit spread out in front of us, and the only source of light – two flickering bulbs dangling from the ceiling, one at each end of the room – wasn't powerful enough to reach all the way to the bottom.

"What d'you suppose is down there?" I tried to inject a small amount of levity into my voice. I failed.

Nadia shook her head. "I dunno, but if this psycho's made it so easy to fall in, you can bet we don't want to."

That summed it up perfectly as far as I was concerned.

"You got a flashlight, Peck?"

I don't know why the Army thinks Decker's so smart.

"Sure, Decker. I always carry a flashlight with me when I go out shopping in LA in the middle of the afternoon. Anyway, I'd rather not know what's down there, if it's all the same to you."

I turned and paced the edge of the pit. There had to be a way over this. The walls were too far apart for me to cross it like I had that first corridor, and it was too far to even think about jumping.

It was on my second tour of the Pit Edge that I noticed something gleaming dully under the light and moved closer.

"Hey Decker! What do you make of this?"

Decker joined me at the edge a few seconds later. "What?"

"Look." I pointed down to what I'd seen; a wooden beam, about as wide as my hand, securely fastened some two feet below the edge. It was painted a dark brown, and the poor light made it impossible to see further than three or four feet ahead.

"Ah." Decker's voice was tight. "Guess that solves the problem of how to get across."

I stared at it, then at Decker.

"You...no way. We're supposed to _walk_ on this?"

"Looks that way, Peck. Only question is, which of us goes first?"

Nadia stepped forward. "I can."

Decker barely looked at her. "No."

"But—" I began.

"I said _no_. It's too dangerous."

I moved to stand nose to nose with Decker. "Why? Nadia told me herself that she's a gymnast. If she can't manage it, we won't. I don't know about you, but I never trained in that kinda thing."

Don't ask me why I said that. Even now, I've no idea...except perhaps that Nadia would have to walk across that beam at some point, and I wasn't keen on leaving her alone with Decker. At first, I hadn't thought he'd do anything to hurt her, but that was before he came out and more or less accused her of being a part of this nightmare. We were both stressed and I was sure he just wasn't thinking straight, but that wouldn't be much consolation for poor Nadia if Decker snapped and threw her into the pit in a fit of paranoia.

"She told you that, did she? And you believe her?"

I stared at him. "Why not? What would be the point of lying about something like _that_? Anyway, you didn't see her climb all those fences, Decker. There's no way she could fake climbing like that."

He subsided, although he didn't look convinced. "No. I guess not."

"Great!" Nadia all but skipped over to the edge, sat down on it and lowered herself carefully onto the beam. As I'd expected, she walked across it steadily without turning a hair. I guess it wasn't too different to a balance beam in gym class, but I wouldn't know. I never trained in gym. Can you imagine a nun demonstrating a cartwheel?

Actually...I think I just did. Mental note: must remember to stick fork in mind's eye.

Even though she didn't slip and the beam didn't snap or suddenly fold in on itself due to a sneakily placed hinge, it was still a relief when Nadia reached the other side. I turned to Decker.

"Alright. Which of us goes next?"

Decker raised cold eyebrows. "That depends, Peck. Bearing in mind we don't know the weight limit of this thing, which one of us would you say is heavier?"

I studied him in silence for a few minutes, trying to figure it out. Truth was, I couldn't call that one; Decker was probably taller, but he was also lankier than I was. I think we came out more or less even in the weight stakes.

Well, one of us had to go next, and it might as well be me as anyone. Bending down, I pulled off my boots, on the basis that bare feet would grip better. It had worked back in that corridor, after all.

"If you get a splinter, Peck, I'm not carrying you."

Fine by me. I still wasn't prepared to trust Decker completely; for all I knew, he'd take it into his head to 'accidentally' drop me into the pit when we were halfway across.

Tying my boots together by the laces, I hung them around my neck, then lowered myself gingerly onto the beam, which barely moved beneath my weight. I wasn't exactly a stranger to balancing games; Hannibal likes making us walk along narrow walls on those obstacle courses of his. Of course, if I slipped off one of _those_, I'd just get muddy (he also likes soaking the ground and making small mud pits either side for those of us who do fall. He says it's so we can have a soft landing. I told him one time that a mattress would do just as well and he sent me around the course again). If I slipped off this beam...well, I'd either fall down and probably break my neck or straddle the damn beam and go through the rest of this gauntlet sounding like Mickey Mouse.

Of course, it didn't help that I couldn't see much. Once I moved out of the light, I'd be walking this balance beam in the dark. Hannibal does occasionally make us do his courses at night, but he always makes sure the obstacles themselves are well lit. I wondered if he and the others were looking for me yet.

Carefully, I stretched both arms out on either side of me. I've never understood why gymnasts do this, unless it's to increase their chances of grabbing something if they fall, but it must help.

I took one nervous step, then another. Two more. The next would bring me into that patch of darkness between the two lights. A small, selfish part of me was glad Nadia had gone first; at least seeing her on the other side meant that the beam was intact and there were no nasty booby traps in the middle.

Another step. Another. Several more. I was feeling my way now, testing every part ahead of me with my feet to make sure I didn't wander off the edge.

I took the next step and that was when things went wrong.

"_Peck_!" Decker's voice rapped out through the darkness, loud, commanding and about two inches behind my left ear.

I jumped. One of my feet hit the edge of the beam and skidded off, the other landed badly and sharp pain flashed up my ankle as I tumbled sideways. I twisted in midair, flailing for something, _anything_ that would stop me falling, and by some miracle I ended up dangling one-handed from the beam.

Somehow, I managed to latch on with my other hand and haul myself up and over until I was sitting on the beam, shaking all over.

"_Decker_!" I yelled it, past caring who might hear, the anger in my voice so strong it unnerved even me. I'm not usually a shouting, screaming kinda guy. "Don't you ever, _ever_ do _anything_ like that to me again!"

There was a short pause, then Decker's voice drifted out from behind me again, sounding a little more subdued than normal.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just _peachy_! Goddammit, Decker, isn't it bad enough the whole building and whoever built it is trying to kill me without _you_ getting in on the act!"

Beat.

"Peck, what the hell are you talking about? Is someone out there with you?"

"Whaddaya mean, is someone out here with me? You just followed me onto this damn beam and yelled in my ear!"

There was a much longer silence. Then Decker said, "Lieutenant, turn around."

I didn't want to. I wanted to leap up and race along the beam until I reached the relative safety of the other side, but that was out of the question. There was no way I was able to stand. Even if I'd been an Olympic gymnast and able to see where I was going, I still don't think my quivering legs would have supported me.

Carefully, I turned around, or at least craned my head as far round as it would go, and saw Decker still standing on the platform I'd just left, directly under the flickering light there.

I stared at him, thunderstruck. There was no way Decker was _that_ fast. I hadn't gone as far as I'd thought (or hoped) but I'd gone far enough. Besides, even if he had somehow crept up on me, yelled in my ear and raced back, he was still wearing his Army boots, and they would have made a noise.

I squinted, trying to see them clearly. It looked like they'd been properly laced through and fastened, and believe me, that takes a lot longer than most people think. No, it couldn't have been Decker. Now that I thought about it seriously, practical jokes like that really weren't his style.

Pushing this mystery to the back of my mind – although it wouldn't stay there very long – I focused on getting across, on leaning forward and gripping the next part of the beam and then scooting my butt along to catch up. Above all, on that blessed patch of light ahead that marked the end of my journey and the assured, almost hypnotic rhythm of my own footsteps.

I'd gotten a few feet on when something – I don't know if it was my Hannibal-Voice or my own thoughts – spoke up in my mind.

_Hang on. Since when did scooting on one's butt sound like footsteps?_

I froze, and listened. There it was again; a soft, stealthy noise that squeaked very slightly, the unmistakable sound of someone coming up behind me.

I didn't turn around. To tell you the truth, I was too nervous of what I might see. Instead, I leaned forward and wrapped both arms and legs around the beam – anyone wanting to throw me off would have to drag me off it first – and raised my voice.

"Uh...Decker? That's you I can hear, right? Walking along the beam? Please tell me that's you."

Wonderful. So much for playing the big, tough Special Forces operative. They sure as hell hadn't covered _this_ situation in any part of Army training.

"Peck, I haven't moved."

I still couldn't bring myself to check this; instead I got going. Fast. If there was an Olympic gold medal for Butt-Scooting Along A Beam In Pitch Darkness, I would have won it easily. Before I knew it, I was at the other end and Nadia was hurrying forward to help me. I shook my head – whatever was coming after me, I didn't want it getting her – and hauled myself up, rolling into the light and waiting.

The footsteps stopped. Instantly. I don't think whatever was causing them liked the light all that much...either that or it couldn't get me here.

I groaned inwardly. I really was losing my grip; first that strange person in the bathroom mirror and now hearing things. There was no way it could have been Decker who yelled; the voice had come from just behind my ear. The footsteps hadn't been heavy enough for him (probably just the beam squeaking a little, yeah, that's it, squeaky beam, nothing to worry about here, folks) and Nadia...no. Even Decker couldn't suspect her of going from the opposite platform to behind me without having to _pass_ me, not unless she a) could be in two places at once or b) was a really spectacular long jumper.

"Decker?" I was breathing rapidly, whether from exhaustion or nerves I didn't know. "Do me a favor. Uh. Don't...don't walk along the beam, okay? Sit down and scoot. I know it's kinda dumb, but, uh, it's a lot more stable and secure."

Part of me couldn't believe what was happening, that I was actually trying to _help_ Decker, but the rest of me knew one thing: whatever he'd done or was likely to do to me and the rest of the Team in the future (assuming we both made it out of here alive) he did not deserve to be caught by whatever was waiting in that patch of darkness for him.

Not that I thought there _was_ anything waiting, of course. Not me. But...just in case.

If Decker heard the non-existent footsteps, he didn't mention it. A few minutes went by, then his hands came into view, shortly followed by the rest of him.

I was never sure what happened next. All I knew was that Decker suddenly glanced to the left and recoiled so fast I spun around, thinking something had turned up behind us, and in those few seconds Decker lost his balance and slipped off the beam.

I didn't even think; I lunged instinctively and caught him by the wrist. This heroic act on my part not only saved him from falling into the pit, it also answered the question I'd had earlier: Decker definitely weighed more than I did. No _way_ was I this heavy.

"_Get __your __goddamn __hands __off __me, __Peck_!"

"Sure, Decker." I shifted my hold, dangling him further over the pit. "If that's _really_ what you want."

Our eyes locked. I could see he wasn't going to humiliate himself by begging for my help, especially since we both knew I had no good reason to give it to him.

Seconds dragged by like hours as we both tried to figure out what I was going to do, then I took a firmer hold of his wrist and hauled him up to safety with such determination I went over on my back.

For a moment I just lay there, breathing in deep, ragged gasps. Decker had already pushed himself to his feet, although something – maybe his close call, maybe his own experiences in that patch of darkness – seemed to have left him badly shaken.

A few more minutes went by, then I struggled upright, wincing as I tried to put weight on my injured ankle. Decker noticed.

"What is it?"

"I twisted my ankle. I'll be okay, just got to take it slow." I sat down and pulled my boots on but didn't bother to lace them up. Instead I tucked the laces inside, then accepted Decker's offered hand and hauled myself to my feet, limping slightly. I'd meant what I said about the ankle; I'd had enough twisted and sprained ankles to be able to judge when an injury was serious and when it wasn't.

Crossing over to the door, I opened it, trying and failing to put the image of Decker's expression on the beam out of my mind. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said he was terrified of something.

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><p><strong>Well, so that's...hmm. Actually, I've lost count of how many rooms and how many there are to go, but I've got it written down somewhere. Anyway, hope you liked it and if you read, please review!<strong>


	11. Car in a Room

**Patricia: **Thanks :D

**Q ****the ****omnipotent ****night ****fury: **Heh, fair enough ;-) And thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it so much ;-)

**halfcent: **Yeah, looks like Decker's starting to get a little freaked out (though it's hard to imagine ;-)) As for what he saw/heard...well, maybe he'll confide in Face, maybe not XD

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><p>There was a car in the next room.<p>

Yeah, I know. That sounds nuts. But I swear it's true. And not just any car either; this was a new-looking, blood red Mercedes-Benz with cream leather seats. The kind of car I'd buy if I could afford it. Or to be more accurate, if I could guarantee my oh-so-considerate commanding officer wouldn't get it riddled with bullet holes at any given time.

"Wow." I limped up to it, all fear lost in admiration, and noted that my ankle was getting better. In terms of pain, it was about level with my knee (like an idiot, I'd twisted the wrong damn ankle, ending up with injuries in _both_ legs). There was no sign of a car key – that would have been just too easy – but on the other hand, there was no sign of any trap inside. Then again, it didn't have to be an _obvious _trap; after all, I'd never noticed any way for gas to be pumped inside that barbwire room. Maybe the exhaust was connected to feed directly into the car and choke anyone who sat in it.

Decker looked at the car, then at me. "Reckon you can hotwire it?"

I raised my eyebrows. My mechanical expertise when it comes to engines is unrivaled, and one-way. This means that I can take a car engine to pieces very easily, but have absolutely no clue how to put it back together again.

"Sure I can hotwire it, Decker. Just show me what to do."

He glanced at me. "You're a fugitive, Peck; you know damn well what to do."

"We were convicted of bank robbery, Decker, not grand theft auto!" I couldn't help stealing a look at Nadia as I said this, and noticed her face was completely neutral...which was odd, when I came to look back on it much later. There should have been _something_, even if it was only shock or _I __knew __it_.

Instead, Nadia just said, "How did it get in here, anyway? The doors are too small."

I looked at the exit door at the far end and agreed; there was no way you'd get a car through there, although the corridor was big enough...ah.

I skittered away from the car hood as though someone had just revved the engine. I suddenly had a nasty idea of how this room was going to try and kill us.

Nadia walked up, although I noticed she didn't seem too keen to step in front of it either. Maybe she was just picking up on my nerves.

"Could you bring it in piece by piece and put it together here?"

I shrugged. "I guess, but I building a car's not exactly something you can do in an afternoon. It'd probably be quicker to blow up one of the walls, drive the car through and park up, then rebuild the wall behind it."

Decker glanced around the bare room. "Maybe there's a key somewhere."

"Yeah. Right. Decker, even if there _was_ a key, have you forgotten that whoever is behind this is trying to kill us? That means that even if we _find_ this hypothetical car key, there's a very good chance that we'll try to start the engine with it and get blown sky high!" That probably went for hotwiring it as well, although I didn't know enough about engines to say so for sure.

I strolled around in front of the car – it couldn't run me over, not all the time the engine wasn't going – and, with a little difficulty, managed to open the hood and rummaged around inside.

"What are you doing?" Decker stared at me, arms folded. "I thought we agreed this thing was no good to drive anyway."

I glared at him. "And what if we're wrong, Decker? I don't want whoever locked us up here to come after us in this!"

I yanked out the distributor cap and all six spark plugs, throwing them to the ground. Five of them smashed. The sixth bounced defiantly and skittered across the floor to Nadia, who picked it up.

"Face? Are you sure you were supposed to do that?"

I glanced at her. "Well, can you think of any reason why I shouldn't have?"

I was being sarcastic but I don't think I did a very good job of it; Nadia took me seriously and answered, "Face, when three people in our situation are brought into a long tunnel with a car at one end, they run for their lives. A normal kidnap victim does _not_ take a few minutes out to root around in the engine and pull out the distributor cap and all the spark plugs first!" She held the one in her hand out to me as evidence, and I took it automatically.

"Yeah, well, maybe not," I informed her before Decker – who had opened his mouth – had a chance to answer, "but a kidnap victim with any sense does."

I strolled down to the far end of the room, taking care to keep my eyes and ears peeled for any sign of a threat.

Nothing happened. There was no gas, no hidden guns, no nasty little trapdoors. I made it there safely, and it was only when I turned to call back to the others that I came face to face with Decker.

"While our little friend is still lingering back there—" jerking his head toward Nadia, who was moving up toward us at a far slower pace than I'd used— "suppose you tell me what the hell you were playing at back on that beam?"

I didn't have to ask what he meant, nor did I see any harm in admitting the truth. "I heard you – or someone who sounded exactly like you – yell in my ear." I rubbed the ear in question; it was still twinging a little. "_Right_ in my ear," I couldn't resist adding.

Decker raised an eyebrow. "You did, huh? And you're sure it wasn't..." He cut his eyes toward Nadia.

"Not unless she's one hell of a ventriloquist. It came from right behind me, Decker, and anyway, how the _hell_ could a fifteen year old girl manage to impersonate _yours_of all voices? I know you're hung up on this whole Nadia's-The-Enemy, but you might at least _try_ a little common sense with that paranoia!"

For a moment, Decker looked like he was struggling not to say something, then he nodded once, curtly.

"Yes. You're right."

I blinked. "I'm...sorry, what?"

"I said you're _right_."

There was a stunned, disbelieving silence between us. At least, _I_was stunned and disbelieving. Decker just looked impatient.

"I don't suppose you'd put that in writing, would you?" I said at last.

"You _don't __suppose_ correctly, Peck."

I stared at him, trying to make sense of it all. "But you heard that guy, right? The one who yelled my name?"

"No, Peck, I didn't hear anyone yell your name. In fact, I didn't hear _anything_ except what we said ourselves! When you yelled like that, I thought someone had grabbed you from behind, someone who you naturally would have assumed was me, since I was the only person in a position to sneak up behind you."

I slumped against the wall, then looked up at him. "I did think it was you, but there's no way you could have got up behind me, yelled in my ear and got back to that platform so quickly without making _some_ kind of noise. Maybe there was someone else there. Maybe that beam we crossed on had others branching off sideways, only we never noticed because it was too dark. Yeah. If the guy was wearing night vision goggles, he'd be able to sneak up and yell like that. Or he could have recorded your voice and played it back over a hidden loudspeaker or something."

Decker's expression was unreadable. "That's all very well as a theory, Peck, except for one thing: why are _you_ the only one who heard it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Great. Wonderful. Now I'm nuts." Something occurred to me and I frowned suddenly. "Hold on...Decker, when you got to the end of that beam, you saw something. Something that scared the pants off you."

Decker froze, his expression as hard as stone, and about as readable. "I don't know what you mean, Peck."

"Decker, if you wanna keep it to yourself, that's fine. I'm not gonna pry, but the point is that _I_ didn't see or hear anything. So if I'm nuts, what does that make you?"

Decker shook his head. "Even if I _did_ see something, Peck – which I didn't—"

"Oh, of course not," I agreed, a little too sarcastically.

"—it was nothing more than an hallucination caused by this place."

I just shrugged. I had no doubt that whatever he'd seen had been caused by this place, but I was less sure that it was an hallucination. I couldn't help wondering who or what Decker had seen, though. I mean, _nothing_ gets to that guy. He's like granite.

I'd reached out to open the door when Decker spoke again.

"Do you trust her?"

I glanced at him. "Huh?"

"Nadia." He kept his voice very low (which isn't hard for someone like him, believe me). "Do you trust her, Peck? _Really_ trust her? Do you even know who she is?"

"Do _you_?" I countered and then, when he was silent, "Look, I'm not an idiot, Decker! If you know something about her that I don't and you think she's a part of all this, then tell me now! She's had plenty of chances to kill us, and so far she's answered every query you had about her. Okay, maybe the answers were a little flimsy, but they were plausible."

Decker shook his head. "I don't _know_ anything about her, Peck, not for certain. I didn't see her when I went past the slicer, which means that at some point, she was dragged and strapped to it, just in time for you to come along and find her there. She hadn't moved far enough along for the slicer to do any damage, which meant she would have been put there very recently."

"Yeah, well, it was lucky for her that she was!"

"Oh yeah, very lucky. Someone straps her to the slicer just in time for you to come along and save her."

"Maybe it was another test, Decker! Maybe she's still a prisoner, only she's a part of the game too. I could have opened another door with that card, or I could have freed her. I chose to stay in the game."

Decker sighed. "Yes, Peck. Very noble, and I'm sure your damn Colonel Smith will be proud of you – if you live to see him again – but _think_. Do you really believe that everyone else who went through here _wouldn't_ have saved her?"

"Yeah...well...maybe I was the first."

"You weren't. Those bags right back at the beginning proved that. Besides, I went ahead of you and I never saw or heard her; and that's another thing, Peck. If she _was_ fully alert and conscious, not at all groggy, then she was probably that way when she was strapped onto the slicer in the first place, and yet you never heard her screaming or fighting. And from what you say, she wasn't screaming or crying; in fact, if your report is accurate, she was remarkably calm for a fifteen year old civilian who had been facing what would have been a very gruesome and terrifying end. Yet she wasn't in any kind of shock. You say she clung to you at one point, which I _would_ expect, but was she crying? Even with relief?"

I thought back, then shrugged. "I don't remember."

He nodded. "Then how do you explain it?"

"I don't, Decker, because _I'm_ not paranoid apart from believing the entire US Army and every police force in the country is out to get me, which doesn't even count as paranoia since it happens to be true! Look, I'll puzzle this out with you all you want once we get out of here – from South America or somewhere else you can't arrest me – but right here and right now, Nadia hasn't done anything to threaten us and until she does, I'm still gonna work on getting her safely out of here!"

Fuming, I turned away from him and pulled the door open, then froze.

"Something wrong, Peck?"

"Uh. I guess. Maybe." I stepped aside enough for Decker and Nadia to see the small opening in the wall, about three foot by two, that the full-size door had been concealing. There was no light inside that I could see; the lights from this room illuminated it just enough for me to make out that it was solid concrete inside.

For a long time the three of us just stared at it. Then I forced a grin that probably looked as good as I felt right at that moment.

"So...how are you guys at crawling?"

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><p><strong>So...a short but in many ways important chapter ;-) More will be along next Monday at the same time; in the meantime, hope you liked this and if you read, please review!<strong>


	12. Voices in the Walls

**Q****the****omnipotent****night****fury:**Thanks :D And...well, you _could_ be right ;) Maybe :P

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><p>"Peck, for the last time will you <em>leave<em> that and get moving!"

I glared at Decker from where I was attempting to relace my boots. "I didn't think there was any kinda time limit in these rooms, Decker."

"Which is why you got gassed and I didn't, remember? Just tuck them inside; we're not on a damn parade ground and there's nobody besides us who'll know!"

I wasn't sure about that. I also wasn't sure why I was still carrying the spark plug, but I wasn't about to drop it and so I shoved it in a pocket instead. Who knew; maybe it would make a nice souvenir.

Decker gestured to the small, dark crawlspace. "In you go."

"What? Why do _I_ have to go first?"

"Because none of us have any experience of this and you're the most expendable." Decker's smirk bordered on the sadistic. "Besides, you're Special Forces. I've heard they spend days at a time crawling through mud and water, and that's just the training. This should be like a home from home for you, Peck."

I turned up the glare, which didn't have any effect but which made me feel a little better, then crawled into the...whatever it was. I don't think it was a ventilation duct. For one thing, whoever heard of putting a duct behind a full-sized door? For another, it was solid concrete.

It was also pitch black inside, which didn't do much for my nerves. Like I said, I really don't like the dark.

I guess it could have been worse, though. At least here, I wasn't balancing on a thin wooden beam who-knows-how-high above a pit containing who-knows-what. And at least _here_ there were no shadows here to play tricks on my eyes, or if there were, it was too dark to see them.

Crawling through it was simple enough, although a very slow process since I insisted on stopping to feel ahead of me for broken glass or unexpected drops at every step. This resulted in Nadia accidentally crawling up my legs a few times, which was awkward but not as bad as it could have been. I mean, I'd rather it was Nadia than Decker.

The silence in that crawlspace was eerie, albeit somewhat relative. That is, the crawlspace and surrounding environment was quiet; we weren't. I could hear the three of us breathing, the shuffling, scraping noise as we each moved forward and the occasional intake of breath as we banged elbows or knees and on one occasion, Nadia saying, "Decker, if you get any closer I'll kick you in the head!"

I've no idea how far along we were, since I couldn't see the end of this tunnel, when the voices started.

They didn't say anything threatening...or at least, I didn't think they did. It was difficult to tell, since they were whispering too softly to make out any of the words.

"Is someone there?" Nadia sounded scared, probably because the voices seemed to be coming from the walls. I was glad she said it, though. I wouldn't want to think I was going mad.

"I don't hear anything." Decker, who was bringing up the rear – either to keep an eye on Nadia or to protect her – sounded dismissive.

I wasn't fooled, though. Something told me that Decker could hear the whispering around us just as easily as I (and presumably Nadia) could. It was infuriating; the noise would rise until you could _almost_ make out what the speakers were saying, then it would drop back down again. They never came from in front or behind, only from both sides, and I couldn't work out if I was glad or sorry about that. I didn't like to think of those responsible waiting for us up ahead or creeping up behind us, but I didn't much like the thought of unseen whisperers keeping pace with us either.

Then, all at once, it stopped. The dead silence was somehow more unnerving than the noise.

"It must have been a recording." Still that same dismissive tone in Decker's voice. I was beginning to get sick of it.

"I thought you couldn't hear anything, Decker," I shot back.

More silence, only this time Decker managed to inject a subtle shade of pissed-offness into it. I couldn't say I blamed him, though; I didn't really want to admit to hearing voices either. If we were surrounded by...other people (even in my own mind, I refused to use the word _ghosts; _there were plenty of things which could have caused noises like this) then part of me couldn't stop wondering exactly what they wanted.

We kept going, I don't know how long for, until I crawled into a metal cover and swore viciously.

"I think I just found the way out."

"Do tell." Decker, who I think was still smarting over my earlier comment (some guys have _no_ sense of humor!) said this just loud enough for me to hear while still being quiet enough for me to pretend I hadn't.

Not wanting to beat him in a battle of wits just then, I felt around the edges of the cover until I found some kind of catch. Fumbling in the dark, I managed to unfasten it and shove it off. It fell away with a loud _clang_ that echoed not just in the room beyond but in this tiny little space as well.

Relieved to be getting out at last (and away from those damn voices, though I'd never admit as much) I scrambled out into what I'd assumed was a corridor and which instead turned out to be a tiny room about six foot by four. It was bare, dimly lit and _freezing_. I'd noticed the temperature dropping in that crawlspace, but the cold in this room hit you like a brick in a sock.

"Nadia?" My breath steamed in the icy air as I turned to see the other two climbing out after me. "Decker? Are you guys okay?"

Nadia looked a little frazzled. "I guess. I'm glad we're out of there though."

"Me too." I looked at Decker. "How about you?"

Decker, never one to admit to being happy about anything, shrugged. Taking that as all the _yes_ I was going to get (I was sure that if he had been hurt, he would have mentioned it) I turned to walk toward the door and Nadia let out a gasp.

"Oh my god! Face, what happened to your leg?"

I glanced at her, surprised, then glanced down at my left leg. Nothing wrong there. Toes all present and correct. Leg working reasonably well. I shifted my gaze to my right leg and felt my heart stop.

Three needles were sticking out.

I stared at them, then up at her and Decker in bewilderment. "But...I didn't feel anything. I mean, I would have noticed."

"You don't feel nauseous? Dizzy?"

I shook my head. "No. Honestly, Decker, I had no idea they were in there."

Decker grabbed the needles and tried to yank them out, but failed.

"They seem to be stuck on something."

I slapped at his hand. "Will you get off my leg! I'm telling you, those things didn't get beyond my pocket!"

To prove it, I reached into the pocket in question, then froze.

"Something wrong, Peck?"

Without saying a word, I drew the needles through the fabric from inside my pocket (which took a little doing) and held them up. All three were embedded in the spark plug.

Decker looked at the spark plug, then at me and said, "Do I want to know?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's one of the ones from that car."

"I know _that_. Was there any particular reason for you to keep it, or did you just want a souvenir of your time here?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I just figured maybe it could come in handy."

"Handy. A spark plug."

I shrugged again, working the needles out with my spare hand. "Well, you have to admit, I was right."

"There was no _way_ you could have foreseen that, Peck."

"I never said I foresaw it, Decker. I said I was right about it coming in handy." I pulled the last needle out and examined it. I couldn't see if it had been tipped with anything, but it wouldn't have surprised me. Even if it hadn't, if those needles had gone that far into glass and metal, I shuddered to think how far they would have gone into my leg. Maybe all the way into the bone.

I dropped the needle on the ground and put my wonderful little spark plug back in my pocket. I'm not sure why – even I didn't believe that the same thing would happen again – but a small part of me felt better for having it.

Decker didn't comment, which I was grateful for. Leaving him to scowl at me, I strolled over to the door, humming a jaunty little tune. There's nothing like a near death experience to give a man a fresh, healthy zest for life. Either that or a nervous breakdown.

I'd just put my hand on the door handle – I had no time to try and turn it – when a shower of water cascaded over me.

Actually, that's putting it a little too poetically. The truth is that it was more like having a big bucket of water dumped on my head. And I should know; Hannibal has been known to do it on occasion, if he thinks I've slept too long, or what he _thinks_ is too long. I hate getting wet. I look terrible with wet hair and if I towel it dry it ends up all fluffy and sticking out and...anyway. At least this time I wasn't the only one; when I glanced over my shoulder I saw that Decker and Nadia had been caught in the deluge too, which made me feel a little better.

"What...?" Nadia reached up to touch her hair with a trembling hand, as if to confirm that this really had happened.

"It's water," I informed her.

"Thank you, Peck, I think we gathered that." Decker, of course.

I folded my arms. "Oh really? Well, maybe you can _gather_ this, Decker; why did this person drench us with water as opposed to ammonia or acid? It's not even scalding."

"Right now, Lieutenant, I've no idea beyond the obviousone that whatever the reason, it's not going to be good for us."

He was right about that, if everything else in this place was anything to go by. I reached out and pushed the door open, then I stared at what lay beyond before glancing over my shoulder.

"Uh...Decker? Nadia? I think I just figured it out."

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><p><strong>Sorry this one's a little short, but I had to do a little rearranging on this fic, and a chunk of this chapter was moved to another one ;) Still, hope you liked it and if you read, please review!<strong>


	13. Under the Wires

**Nalan: **Thanks :D

**halfcent: **Heh, thanks ;) As for Nadia...give it another two or three chapters and you'll find out for certain :P

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><p>It is often said (or it was when I was seven and petitioning the nuns for a TV in the bathroom) that water and electricity do not mix.<p>

This, as any scientist will tell you, is not true. Water and electricity mix beautifully, just like water and potassium.

With that in mind, I was not happy to see the dangling electrical cables in the next room. None of them were sparking, but any doubts I might have had about their lethality were squashed the moment I saw the body lying face down on the floor.

I stared at it and said without thinking, "Who's that?"

"_Is_?" Decker echoed.

I glared at him. "Will you cut that out! It wasn't funny the first time and it's not funny now!"

Decker shrugged but didn't answer. I think even he was starting to tire. More than that, I think baiting me about things like this had lost all its appeal. He'd been acting a little oddly ever since the beam incident. Not for the first time, I thought I'd give my right arm to know what it was he'd seen there.

I knew I'd never find out, though. Not unless he decided to confide in me, and let's face it, that really wasn't gonna happen any time soon. I guess I couldn't blame the guy. I wouldn't trust him with my secrets either. Actually, I wouldn't trust anybody with my secrets; there are things I've never even told Hannibal. Good things, most of them – a guy's got to have some treasures – but still, I _really _wouldn't pick Decker as a confidant.

We stood there, growing colder by the second. This room was freezing, so much so that I wondered if we'd somehow come in a complete circle and ended up above the freezer room, and being soaked in cold water hadn't helped. If the electricity didn't kill us, the hypothermia would.

You know, people laugh at things like hypothermia and, on the other end of the scale, dehydration, but believe me; on a severe scale they're killers, and it doesn't take much to tip that scale either. I remembered an incident in Nam, when one of our boys collapsed with dehydration and since I was the only one who wasn't burdened by extra equipment, injuries or other wounded soldiers, I'd had to carry him back. (Alright, I didn't _have_ to, but even allowing for the screwed up kid I'd been back then, I wasn't cold-blooded enough to abandon another soldier without a much better reason than _Well, Colonel, __I __didn't __really __want __to __carry __him_).

Anyway, we made it back and Hannibal was standing there, waiting. He always did that; waited to check us in personally rather than stay shut up in his ivory hooch like many other officers. I think that was part of the reason why so many soldiers were willing to follow him. He asked what had happened to the guy I was carrying, and when I told him that the medic assigned to our patrol claimed it was dehydration, Hannibal went through the roof. It's not something he does very often, which is probably why it stuck out in my mind so much. The reason? The soldier who had collapsed with dehydration still had a full canteen. He just hadn't realized how bad things were getting.

I've never seen anyone with severe hypothermia, although Hannibal says he saw several cases in Korea. I always thought all countries in that part of the world were nothing but steamy hot jungles and elephants, but apparently not. Turns out Korea has some pretty nasty winters and virtually no jungle at all. Go figure.

"Peck!"

I blinked and glanced over at Decker. The whole memory had passed through my mind in less than a few seconds, although my mind had apparently decided to go wandering for a little longer, which worried me.

"Yeah? What?"

Decker nodded toward a fuse box. Someone had thoughtfully left it open, and I could make out about a dozen switches inside. This would have been a lot more useful if I knew which switch corresponded to which dangling cable, and if, of course, the fuse box hadn't been on the other side of the room.

I looked at it, then I looked back at Decker.

"Think you could work your magic with the baseball again?" I asked.

Decker shot me a sharp look, then appeared to decide I wasn't making fun of him.

"Peck, I could hit any switch in that fuse box you'd care to point at, but that wouldn't do us any good. Even if you picked the right one out of twelve, hitting the switch with a baseball isn't likely to trip it, and what if we need to use more than one?"

I folded my arms. I believed him – at least, the part about his throwing aim; I'd seen enough evidence of that in the water room and with those acid sprinklers – but that didn't mean I had to like it.

"Alright then, _you_ come up with a better idea! One which doesn't involve crawling under those." I waved my hand in the direction of the cables for emphasis, then said, "Or at least, one which doesn't involve _me_ crawling under those."

"Those cables aren't dangling all the way to the floor, Peck," Decker pointed out. "In fact, most of them are about two feet above it."

"Okay. _You_ crawl under them."

I hadn't meant for him to take me seriously, but he did; as soon as the words were out of my mouth, Decker gave me a cold look, then lowered himself to the ground and started moving while I stood there and shivered. It was, if anything, getting even colder.

I turned around, looking for Nadia, and saw her leaning against the wall, hugging herself tightly.

"You okay?" I asked.

She glanced at me and managed a wan nod, coupled with something that I think she intended for a reassuring smile and which didn't fool me for a second. I noticed she wasn't shivering as badly as I was, and that worried me. If she was too cold to shiver, she was _really_ in a bad way. I guess I could've held her, tried to warm her with my body heat, but to be honest, I doubted I would make much of a difference after being soaked in cold water.

"It'll work out," I told her, although my voice wasn't as smooth and confident as usual. Must have been the cold. "Sure, Decker's not the nicest guy you could ever meet, but he knows what he's doing."

Nadia shrugged. "He thinks I'm involved with this," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I don't understand why."

To be honest, neither did I. Nadia had had plenty of chances to kill us. If that was her aim, why hadn't she asked me to come on the beam with her and pushed me off? Why hadn't she pushed me into the barbwire room and slammed the door behind me, or kept me talking until the gas kicked in and I was dead?

I turned around, just in time to see things going wrong. Decker had misjudged the distance between himself and the most recent cable and was straightening up too soon. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, but it was already too late; the back of his neck had brushed against one of the cables. There was a _crack_ that made my ears whimper, then Decker was thrown halfway across the room. Without thinking, I dropped to the ground and wriggled on my belly under the cables until I reached him and fumbled at his wrist, hunting for a pulse.

Nothing. However much electricity was racing through those damn cables, I'd been right when I said it was a bad idea to touch any of them. A _really_ bad idea.

However bad it was, it was rapidly supplanted by an even worse realization: that if I wanted Decker out of here (and I did; I'd already decided that I wasn't going to let whoever was behind this win _that_ easily) then I was going to have to...do something.

"Face!" Nadia called from behind me. "Is he okay?"

I twisted around to look at her as best I could and answered, "Not really. Uh. Do you know any kind of resuscitation?"

She shook her head. "No. I thought you did."

I did, but the thought of giving it to Decker was making my toes curl. I know I said I wanted to help him out of here, but even _so_...!

"You could just leave him, you know," Nadia added.

"Don't be an idiot, I'm not going to abandon him here." I hesitated only a second or two longer before lacing my fingers together over Decker's chest and beginning.

Several seconds went by before there was any reaction; Decker drew in a long, shuddering breath and began coughing violently.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Decker," I greeted him. "Such as it is."

It took him some time before he managed to get control over his lungs. When he did, he glared at me and said in a hoarse voice, "I think you broke one of my ribs."

I wasn't having that, not after I'd gone to so much trouble to bring the ungrateful jerk back from the dead, and so I glared right back at him.

"Oh, well, excuse me, Decker! It wasn't exactly a picnic for me either, you know, and if you ever mention it to anyone, either of you," I added, turning to include Nadia, "I'll deny everything!" I hesitated, then decided to risk another question. "You, uh, didn't happen to see any bright lights while you were gone, did you?" I asked, trying to keep my tone and face as neutral as possible. "Any long tunnels?"

Decker turned the glare up a few degrees, but that didn't bother me. Once you've been glared at by BA, all other glares hold no fear for you. Believe me.

Nadia cleared her throat and said delicately, "What about all the switches?"

I looked at her, then at the switches. If Decker and I had been fictional characters in a story, chances are that the electricity which blew Decker across the room would also have blown him to within conveniently easy reach of the fuse box, and then all any of us would have needed to do was reach up and flick all the switches.

Since we were real people and this was real life, however, the electricity had blasted him in completely the wrong direction and we were now staring at the box from the opposite wall and further away from it than ever.

I glanced at my companions and said resignedly, "Alright. I guess it's my turn."

Well, I couldn't ask Nadia to do it, and Decker had been dead a few minutes ago. That only left me. I turned and started crawling under the cables again, keeping as low as I could. There was a faint, very low buzzing from over my head, an endless reminder of what would happen if I forgot where I was. The worst part was when I had to move the body aside. I could guess what had happened to him easily enough; he'd become too eager when he was getting close to the fuse box, jumped to his feet and hit one of the cables. I felt a little sorry for him, whoever he'd been; if he'd woken up in the same room I had and followed the same route, then he'd come a long way.

Pressing my body against the wall, I craned my head back and pushed myself up as slowly as I could, until I was standing next to the fuse box. Without bothering to look (there were four cables dangling dangerously close to the box) I reached around and pulled down every switch I could feel.

The low hum of electricity died away. Cautiously, I poked the nearest cable with the very tip of my finger.

Nothing happened. I tried gripping it. Still nothing. It looked like it was safe, and so I made my way back to Decker and Nadia, pushing through the cables as though they were paper streamers.

"I thought you were going to crawl to the door," Decker said.

"If the room was electrified, Decker, there's a good chance the door was as well." I brushed the cables aside and helped him to his feet. "Let's go, before the ceiling collapses or the floor falls out from under us or something."

Decker winced as I pulled him upright – I guess he wasn't kidding about the broken rib – and followed Nadia and me over to the door.

I put my hand on the handle. When it failed to kill me, I tried turning it. The door opened, swinging inward without a sound.

"Another dark room." Nadia peered around me, squinting as she tried to see inside.

"Naturally," Decker interjected. "Peck just cut the power to every light in the building except the one above our heads."

This was probably true, but I sure as hell wasn't going to go back and experiment with those switches.

"Well, whatever's in there," I said, "I hope it includes a nice, hot towel. Let's go."

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, so most of you guessed what was in this room (after all, with the water, there were only a few things it could have been) ;) Still, hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review! More next Monday!<strong>


	14. Endgame

**Nalan: **Thanks XD New episode/chapter every Monday at 7pm...yeah, sounds kinda like a TV series to me ;) Or maybe a chapter play, which is how this story was designed. Seriously though, with other work, writing and commitments (not to mention Christmas shopping) one chapter a week is about my limit right now ;)

**Q: **No worries ;) And thanks :D

* * *

><p>I tell you, I was not happy about going into that room. Bad enough most of the other rooms had already tried to kill us, but at least we'd been able to see what we were doing, unless you counted the room with the beam. It wasn't until Decker and Nadia had been in there for about three minutes without dying that I managed to force myself inside.<p>

Predictably, the door slammed shut as soon as I was through.

"Peck!" Decker hissed. Why _do_ people always speak so quietly in the dark?

"Yeah, that was me. You guys found anything? Any giant man-eating plants or something?" I felt my way along the wall as I spoke, moving until I reached the corner. That was better. There's something nice and friendly about a corner.

This particular corner, I discovered upon further investigation with my fingers, was already playing host to a hard, cold pipe...no, I amended after I'd pulled it and it wiggled a little, not a pipe; a cable. I frowned, trying to puzzle it out.

"Hey Decker," I said in a low voice. "What do you make of this?"

Decker fumbled his way over to me (or to be more precise, blundered right _into_ me) and felt the cable.

"Think it's part of that electrical room?" I asked.

"No. Not unless this was the main power supply. Those cables were cut off and dangling; this one goes all the way to the floor and it's a lot thicker."

I knelt down and traced the cable with my fingers. He was right; it went right down into the floor and beyond, fed through a small hole. I gave the cable an experimental tug, then a harder one.

"Hold on," I said to Decker. "I'm going to see how far up it goes."

I took a firm grip on the cable with both hands and hauled myself up. I didn't do it as quickly as normal (I'm pretty good at rope-climbing, or cable-climbing in this case, but I'd been through a lot recently and my arms were getting tired) but that didn't matter, since the ceiling wasn't all that high. I wasn't sure in the darkness, but I guessed it at about twelve feet.

The cable went into a small hole up there too, a hole set in an inch-deep groove at the very edge of the ceiling. I couldn't make out anything else or see how such a tightly-strung cable could be dangerous, and so I dropped back down to the floor.

"Anything?" Decker asked.

I shook my head, forgetting he couldn't see the gesture, then said, "Nothing. It goes into a kind of groove, but that's all I can make out."

Nadia's voice drifted out of the dark from a place I guessed to be the other side of the room.

"There's one over here as well."

I turned to investigate, but Decker – either by good luck or really _amazing_ night vision – caught hold of my arm.

"Those needles, Peck...any ideas how they got into your leg?"

I glared at him, or at least in his direction.

"No," I said flatly, "and if you even _think_ about saying that Nadia did it, I'll tell everyone that _you_ gave _me_ CPR! Those things were embedded in the spark plug, Decker. Get that? _Embedded_. Through glass and metal. Do you have any idea how _hard_ she would have had to ram them into my leg to do that? I'd have felt the impact, if nothing else."

Decker shook his head. "No, I don't think she tried to put those needles in you, Peck, any more than I think she was the one who filled that room with water. But if I were you, I'd be very careful around her, and before you put on your shining armor, Lieutenant, answer me this: can you think of _any_ reason, any logical reason _why_ I would want to turn you against Nadia? What do I get from it? You were going to leave me to take her somewhere safe after all this, which I understand and I was willing to do, she's too young for us to fight over her – and even if she wasn't, she's not my type – and we stand a much better chance of getting out of this if we work together. Why would I try and warn you about Nadia if I didn't think there was something to warn you _about_?"

I folded my arms, determined to get him to give up on this once and for all, although I couldn't quite shake the unease in my mind.

"Right," I retorted. "So if Nadia secretly wants to kill me – which, by the way, I _still_ don't believe – then _why_ me? Why hasn't she tried to kill you?"

I wasn't sure in the darkness, but I thought Decker might have looked away. Eventually he said very quietly, "I'm not so sure she hasn't."

"Decker, if you expect me to believe that _you_ of all people would just stand there while someone tried to kill you, you're even crazier than I thought!"

"I'm not talking about her sneaking up on me with a knife, Peck."

"Right," I said again. "So what _are_ you talking about?"

"I'm talking about—" Decker began angrily, then broke off. In a quieter voice, he said, "Do you hear that?"

I went very still, not moving a muscle.

"Hear what?" I asked.

"That," Decker insisted, which seems to be both the most popular and least helpful answer to that particular question, I've noticed.

Straining my ears, I thought I _could_ just about hear something; a low, very quiet hum.

"What..." That noise hadn't been there before, I was sure of it.

Decker was silent for a few moments, then abruptly said, "The cable's moving."

I reached out and felt the cable slithering upward. Something about that worried me.

"Do you think the floor's going up?" I asked. Dumb question, I know, but I couldn't think of anything else it could be.

Unfortunately, Decker could.

"No, I don't. I think that cable is hooked up to some sort of counterweight, which means it's more likely something's coming _down_. We'd better get moving." He said all this quite calmly, as if we weren't about to be crushed by a...well, whatever it was.

I didn't need to be asked twice. I turned, feeling for the right direction with one hand on the wall, and ranwithout stopping to think of what might be ahead. Fresh pain shot through my knee every time I put my weight on it, although I'd traveled with worse pain (that time when I got shot in the leg outside Khe San was a case in point). Even with a bad knee, I was sure I could make it to the exit in time.

It was at that point that I tripped and fell hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Not over a piece of rock or a tripwire, or even on a sneakily placed banana peel; that would have been bearable, although I'd never hear the end of it from the guys if it _had_ been a banana peel.

No, I tripped over my bootlace. My stupid, stupid bootlace that stupid, stupid Decker had ordered me to tuck inside my boot rather than stopping to tie it up, because he'd been in _such_ a hurry to stuff me into that crawlspace!

I fell forward, hit the floor hard and lay motionless. Anyone who's ever had the wind knocked out of them will know how it feels. If you haven't, you can't imagine it. The best way I can describe it is by saying your body goes into something like shock. You can't even yell.

I heard scrabbling as Decker reached the other wall – it was only a few feet away, how's that for irony? – and felt around it for the door, but couldn't call to him. I wasn't even sure he'd help me if I did. I wondered if he'd find an anonymous way of letting Hannibal know what had happened and then realized he wouldn't have to; my colonel would soon be getting an unlabeled video with the mail and could see for himself.

The door opened and I could see light on the other side. I guess I hadn't cut all the power supply after all.

_Decker_. I couldn't even whisper it; instead I just mouthed it and wondered why. Instinct, I guess; I'm not too heavy, but Decker could drag or carry me a lot more easily than Nadia could.

Something – I never did find out what – pressed against my ribs and kept pressing. I _felt_ them crack under the pressure and bit back a scream, dizziness whirling through my head. I couldn't die here, not like this. Not this slow, lingering death. I just _couldn't_!

All of a sudden, I was grabbed under the arms and pulled hard. My ribs grated against each other and I screamed soundlessly, but then I was out, I was _out_ from under that and into the next room.

I dimly heard Decker saying, "Now we're even, Peck!" but didn't have the strength to answer him. I felt numb, like I was floating in a bubble, and I was trembling so violently I couldn't move. My ribs were nothing but splintering pain and I collapsed onto my side, stars darting around in front of my eyes.

"Peck!" Decker's voice rang eerily in my ears and I rolled over, propping myself up on my elbows, and opened my mouth to answer.

Big mistake, as I discovered when I threw up. Again! It was bad enough having to puke back in that freezer room, but at least Decker and Nadia hadn't been around to see it.

I don't know how long I stayed there, but at last the stars cleared and I could see, although I still had that sense of numb detachment, as though I was seeing the world through a glass. Swallowing hard, trying to get enough saliva into my mouth to rinse out the sour taste of bile, I accepted Decker's offered hand and hauled myself to my feet.

Actually, that's giving me a little more credit than I deserve. The truth is that I yelped when I got halfway up and fresh pain spiked through my ribs, and I had to cling onto Decker for support. Once I'd managed to regain my balance, I looked around and saw the way out.

Well, alright, not _quite_ the way out. Not in the sense of a door we could just open and walk through. But there was a small rectangular opening with daylight coming through it (it _had_ to be daylight; no artificial light ever looked like that).

There was an inviting looking lever on one side. Before either Decker or I had a chance to stop her, Nadia walked up and pulled it. A low whirring filled the room, and the opening widened just enough for one of us to squirm through. Nadia glanced at us.

"I guess that's that," she said, and released the lever. Immediately, the opening slammed half closed.

Yes. That _was_ that. This room was clear enough: two of us would get out, one wouldn't. There was nothing in the room we could use to tie the lever, nor was there anything to tie it _to_.

"Alright." Decker sounded tired. "Well, I guess there was no reason this should be any easier than the rest of the place. Peck? Grab the lever."

I choked. "_Me_? Why me?"

"You're a fugitive. That makes you expendable, so you hold the damn lever."

"Yeah, but unlike _me_, Decker, there's nobody on the other side who's going to miss _you_! You hold it!"

Nadia stepped forward, a look of terminal exasperation on her face. "_I'll_ hold it! You two go."

Decker and I broke off mid-argue and stared at her. Both of us had taken it for granted that Nadia would be one of the ones to go through the window; the only thing left to decide was which of us went with her.

"What?" I said, stunned. "No!"

"You're soldiers, Face. I'm just a fifteen year old girl; the police aren't going to help me if I go to them with this."

I was about to say that I didn't think the police were all that likely to help me either, but Nadia continued.

"But you two are Army officers. They'll listen to you, you can go and bring them back and, I don't know, cut through the wall or something. I'll be fine here. Even if whoever did this comes back, you can search the place more easily with, I don't know, guns or cutting torches or something. And there'll be more of you. It's the only logical way."

I shifted my weight, studying the walls to avoid meeting anyone's gaze. Nadia's plan of sending us both to the cops for help was good, but I doubted Decker would go with me to the police except to deliver me into their custody. Oh, I was sure he'd send that help back for Nadia—

_Oh __really_? a little voice inside me whispered, cutting off my train of thought completely. _How __sure?__Because __you're __talking __about __the __man __who __thinks __that __Nadia __is __a __part __of __what's __been __happening __here._

I glanced at Decker, who was staring at Nadia through narrowed eyes.

"How do I know you're not going to let go of the lever when I'm halfway through?" he said suddenly.

Nadia shrugged. "Face can hold it for you, if you want, then I'll hold it for him. _He_ trusts me, Decker, even if you don't."

Something in the way she said that sent a sudden chill down my spine, although I didn't know why.

"Do any of us know what's on the other side of that window?" I asked. "I mean, we're not ten floors up or anything."

Decker shook his head. "No, we're on the ground floor. It's desert out there as far as I can see, although I can only see one side. Once we're through the window, we're free."

I nodded, then walked over and pushed down on the lever. "Alright. Go."

I could see in his eyes that this wasn't what he'd expected, but he wasn't stupid enough to argue. After all, if I'd wanted him dead, I wouldn't have bothered resuscitating him.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked me.

"Simple. I hold the lever for you, you get out. Nadia holds the lever for me, _I_ get out. Nadia keeps holding the lever while you and I find a rock or something to prop the window open from the other side, and then _Nadia_ gets out. Now, have you got that or do you want me to say it all over again?"

Apparently it was clear; Decker walked away without another word and hoisted himself headfirst through the window. It wasn't a graceful maneuver – people aren't meant to wriggle through tight spaces like that – but it was effective; he was out in about five seconds.

Nadia took hold of the lever. With my luck, her grip would slip or something and I'd be in serious trouble; that window snapped shut with enough force to break my back if I was stuck in the middle.

"Are you sure you can manage?" I asked her.

Nadia smiled. "Of course I can, Face. You go out and find some of your soldiers to send back for me."

I thought I'd leave the finding soldiers bit to Decker, but didn't say so. Instead, I walked over to the window.

Decker was right. It was a desert out there, if you'll excuse the cliché. I could see him standing a few feet away from me, watching.

Moving slowly, because any rapid movement sent pain screaming through my ribs, I slithered halfway through the window and stopped as I caught one of those ribs on the edge. The pain made me dizzy for a few minutes and I shook my head, fighting to clear it.

"Having trouble, Peck?" Decker asked me.

"I'll be fine," I retorted, although the words came out badly slurred. I watched him as he moved toward me. "If you're thinking of pushing me back—!"

"No." His voice was quiet, and something made me believe him. Decker might try and arrest me, might handcuff me, but he wouldn't force me back into that place. Still, even if he was waiting for me, I'd be happier when I was outside. The heat of the desert was exhilarating, thawing me out (those last few rooms really had been _freezing_) and I made one last effort to wriggle free.

As I watched, Decker shifted his gaze to just behind me and did something odd: he lunged forward suddenly, grabbed my wrists and yanked so hard that I popped out of that window like a champagne cork, tumbled on top of him and we both went down together.

A split second later, the window slammed shut.

"_No_!" I scrambled to my feet and lunged for it, scrabbling around the edge with my fingers and when that failed, trying to prise the two parts apart with my bare hands. "Decker, c'mon, give me a hand! See if you can find something to get this open!"

Decker caught hold of me and dragged me away.

"You can't help her, Peck. It's too late."

"Don't be stupid, Decker! There has to be another way in—"

"The only way to get to her is to find the entrance and run the whole damn gauntlet again! Do you really want to do that? Because there's no way in hell _I'm_ going back in there, and you'll never get through that acid room without me."

I twisted out of his grasp and shoved him away so hard I sent him sprawling. Pain shot through my cracked ribs, but at that point I was past feeling it.

"We can't just _abandon_ her!" I protested.

Decker picked himself up slowly – that gauntlet, as he put it, had left him in just as bad a shape as me – and shook his head.

"Wrong." His voice was very calm. "The Voyeur won't hurt her, Peck. Believe me."

I stared at him, searching for some hint that he was kidding. Even Decker couldn't be _this_ ruthless. I knew he hadn't liked the poor kid, hadn't trusted her, but _abandoning _her?

"Look," I said, fighting to keep my voice even. "I know you don't trust her for some reason, but I'm telling you now that she has _nothing __to __do __with __this_! Nadia is just a fifteen year old girl who got kidnapped and sucked into the same hell as we did and I for one am _not_ going to leave her in that building to die!"

I spun on my heel and strode back to the building. There had to be a rock or a really strong stick or...or _something_ around here I could use to get the window open!

I'd gotten all of three steps when Decker spoke again.

"_Is_? You mean you still don't get it?"

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><p><strong>Okay, I know that technically this was two rooms, but I couldn't stretch either of them out long enough to make two chapters, so I decided to put them together ;) Only two more chapters to go and then it's on to the next fic (genre voting is now open on my profile if anyone has any preferences ;)) In the meantime, hope you liked this and if you read, please review!<strong>


	15. Departure

I froze, then turned to face him. He was staring at me with a look of mingled perplexity and understanding. Both expressions were so strange for him that it took me a second or two to place them.

"Decker, you really are losing your mind. Nadia is _not_ the Voyeur!"

Decker shook his head. "I never said she was. Never thought it. You were right in what you just said about her, only you got your tenses a little confused."

I didn't want to think about that, about what it meant, and so I said, "No. You're lying. It...she just _saved __our __lives_, Decker!"

"No she didn't," Decker corrected me. "I didn't trust her enough to let her hold the lever, and if I hadn't pulled you out of the window, you'd now be pinned there with a broken back."

That was true, although I didn't buy into Decker's reasoning behind it.

"Alright. You've admitted Nadia isn't the Voyeur. Why don't you tell me exactly what she is, if you've got it all worked out?"

"For god's sake, _think _about it!" Decker snapped. "We were always on edge, but Nadia was calm throughout the whole thing, as though the traps couldn't touch her. She scrambled over a series of barbwire fences and her clothes didn't even snag, yet _yours__—_" Decker nodded toward what remained of my pants— "got torn to pieces. You got a lungful of whatever that gas was and it knocked you out for some time; Nadia was exposed to the same gas and _she_ wasn't even out of breath. And you're an Army officer! You learned to climb barbwire and deal with gas as a matter of course and you were almost killed in there, yet neither of those things had the slightest effect on Nadia. In that room after the crawlspace, we were both on the verge of hypothermia and Nadia wasn't even shivering. Do you get it _now_, Peck?"

I backed away fast, shaking my head. But that was a lie. I _did_ get it. I'd got it the moment he stopped me going back to that window.

"No!" I held up both hands, palm outward. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, _no_, Decker, I don't get _it_, as you put it, because the _it_ that you want me to get is just too damn crazy! And you know, coming from Murdock's best friend, that is _really_ saying something! Besides, _I_ wasn't the one who tried to leave her in that barbwire room just because I wanted to arrest her friend!" I finished, a little confusedly.

He stared at me, then his face cleared. "I see. You thought I was talking about you, didn't you?"

I blinked. "What?"

"When Nadia told you I'd dropped her and I said I'd had one hell of a shock. You thought I was talking about seeing you."

I frowned, trying to puzzle this out. "Well...yeah. You can't have been expecting to find me there."

Decker snorted. "No. Seeing you _was_ a shock, but not enough of one to make me drop a kid that I was doing my best to save! I made the mistake of looking down at her and I saw what I was holding. That was enough of a shock for anyone."

I stalked away, stopped as something new occurred to me, then turned and stalked back again.

"Right. Well, how come _you_ saw her? I mean, no offense, Decker, but I wouldn't exactly call you psychic!"

Decker pondered this for a few minutes, then said, "Best guess?"

I nodded.

"She wasn't banking on my being there. That time in the barbwire room, I saw her as she really was. Just for an instant, but it was there. Either that or she wanted to frighten me off."

"But—" I began.

"I thought I must be hallucinating. Especially after seeing you there," Decker added.

"Yeah. That's because you were."

"Peck, I was holding a _corpse,_and don't even think of telling me that I don't know what one of those looks like!"

I didn't. Soldiers were people too, which means we could make mistakes like anyone else, but the one thing every soldier knows is what a dead body looks like. If I had that rather dubious ability, I was certain Decker did as well.

"When I asked you if you thought someone was stalking us—" I began.

"Tell me something, Lieutenant," Decker interrupted. "When did _you_ first start feeling that you were being followed by something unfriendly?"

I licked my lips, wishing like hell I'd thought to get a drink of water out of that bathroom we'd been in, and shrugged.

"I don't know," I said. "When I first arrived?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

No. Not really, now that I thought about it. The first time I'd had that feeling had been just before I entered that barbwire room, a few minutes after I met Nadia.

"But you felt it too, right?" I said.

Decker sighed. "Yes, Peck, but not until you and Nadia showed up. You and I took the same route – not that we had much choice – but there was no sign of that girl. I saw the timber slicer—"

"There! You see?"

He took a deep breath. I got the oddest feeling he was begging someone for patience. "Peck, that slicer was useless. There was rust and cobwebs all over it. I know. I took a good long look, just in case it was going to fire a spear at me or something, and some of the insides were rusted away. Now I'm no mechanic, but even I knew there was no way that slicer was going to slice up anything again, least of all a fifteen year old kid."

I shook my head. In spite of the desert heat, I was feeling very cold.

"No," I told him. "You're wrong, Decker. I helped her off that slicer! I pulled the blindfold off her! And then she slapped me," I added, remembering that first encounter. "I...she was hysterical. I _comforted_ her."

Decker shook his head. "Peck, I don't know _what_ you released from that slicer _or_ what you comforted, but whatever it was, it had been dead for a long time. I _saw_ it, back in that barbwire room!"

"Ah!" I pounced on this. "But you said yourself, you thought you were hallucinating because of the gas. Remember?"

Decker curled his lip. "You got far more of that gas than I did. Did _you_ hallucinate, Peck?"

I swallowed hard, then said, "It might still have been, I don't know, stress or something."

To my surprise, he nodded. "Yeah, I thought that at first. Then I saw it again."

I dreaded asking the next question, but forced it out of myself, part of me already knowing the answer.

"Where?" I asked him.

Decker pointed toward the building, at where the window had slammed closed. "Right there. You must have wondered why I pulled you out like I did, instead of leaving you to wriggle out by yourself."

I hadn't, until he mentioned it. I'd been too occupied with saving Nadia to wonder why Decker had taken it into his head to hurry my exit.

"She looked at me, Lieutenant, and when she did, she looked like she did back in that barbwire room. I saw her starting to release the lever. Even if I _was_ hallucinating about the way she looked, I wasn't hallucinating about that."

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

"_Why_?" I demanded, although I don't think Decker knew the answer to that question any more than I did. "I wasn't responsible for what happened to her! I tried to _help_her! Why the hell would Nadia want to kill me?"

Decker shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe the dead get lonely."

That was a truly horrifying thought.

And then, as we stood there looking at each other, something shifted between us. Gradually we both remembered that we were mortal enemies, that he was in charge of hunting me and the others down and that I was a fugitive with a hefty price on my head. At that moment, I wasn't sure what he was going to do. I don't think he was either.

We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time, then he spoke.

"January, huh?"

"January," I agreed.

Pause.

"I could take you in right now," Decker said.

I didn't have the strength to argue with him. I just nodded in agreement. We both knew that while I wouldn't make it easy for him, I couldn't make it hard enough for him to let me go. We were both pretty rough, but Decker was in far better shape than I was.

He took a step forward and cleared his throat. "Lieutenant Peck, I arrest you in the name of the United States Army and order you to come with me. However, right now we have no water, so we'll stay here until nightfall. After everything that bastard did, I'm feeling a little tired, so I intend to get some rest in the shade, maybe even sleep, and I advise you to do the same thing as soon as you can. And..." he hesitated, then said, "Face?"

I looked at him oddly. Decker had never called me by nickname before. There was something more going on here, even my tortured mind could figure that much out.

Never taking his eyes off me, Decker said in a quiet voice, "If I were you, I wouldn't be around when I woke up."

I felt the grin appear on my face as if from nowhere. "Right."

There was another moment between us, when we could have said something – what, I've no idea – then Decker went and sat down in the shade, leaning against the wall.

I suddenly realized that I didn't want to take off on my own. Not because of any tender feeling on my part, but because he was older than I was, more experienced...he'd know how to survive in the desert better than I would. And in a crazy kind of way, I felt a bond with the guy. Decker had run the gauntlet from hell, same as I had, and I found I didn't like to think of him dying in the desert after all that.

Maybe the game wasn't over yet. We had no food, no shelter, and most importantly, no water. Was this the final challenge, crossing a desert with no more than the clothes on our backs?

_Don't __be __an __idiot, __Face,_ my Hannibal-Voice admonished me (hopefully I'd trade it for the _real_ Hannibal soon). _He's __given __you __a __way __out; __take __it. __Or __would __you __rather __spend __the __next __thirty __years __of __your __life __in __jail?_

I swallowed. No, I most definitely would not.

Silently, I wished Decker good luck and goodbye, then turned away from the building toward the desert and started walking.

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><p><strong>Well, this is pretty much where you came in ;) One final chapter will be up next week, and then this is finished :D<strong>


	16. Finale

**Alright, I know it's a little early. Blame the holidays and all the leftover turkey waiting for me right now :P Enjoy!**

**Damla:** Thanks :D And I will write another story after this...which one depends on how the vote falls ;)

**halfcent: **Heh, no worries ;) I do sometimes screw the continuity up, but like you said, in this case it was a plot device rather than a plot hole XD

**Mystery Reviewer:** Not quite sure who you are; there was no name on the review, but thanks XD

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><p>I glanced up at Hannibal, who had been silent throughout this entire story. My mouth was dry, not just from talking so much; I had no idea if he was going to believe this or not. I wasn't given to lying – at least, not for the hell of it – but I had to admit, this wasn't your average story.<p>

Hannibal stayed silent for a long time, so long I began to get nervous. I knew him well enough to know that he was piecing it all together in his mind, working it through and trying to find an alternative explanation for what I'd just told him.

"I'm not making this up, Hannibal," I told him, after five minutes had ticked by without a word.

"No." Pause. "No, I didn't say you were."

"But you don't believe me."

"I didn't say that either, kid. It's just...this is one hell of a story."

I was quiet. Hannibal was right; this was one hell of a story.

Murdock got to his feet and walked out. He was calm about it, not looking at either of us, but it still hurt a little. I didn't think he disbelieved me, just that he needed some space to clear his head.

Hannibal sat there a while longer, then said, "C'mon Face. You need some more sleep."

I swallowed. "Hannibal, you believe me, right?"

There was a short pause, then Hannibal said, "Face..."

I waited for him to reassure me, but instead he continued, "You want to go back to bed, or would you rather sleep here?"

"Hannibal—"

"Here or in there?"

I really wanted to go back to bed, but I didn't think I could face the walk. Telling my story had exhausted me.

"I'll stay here."

He nodded. "Alright. I'll get you a pillow and some blankets."

I was asleep by the time he brought them in and didn't wake up until late the following afternoon to an empty house. That was alright, though; Hannibal would have made sure the place was secure before leaving. To be honest, I was glad not to have to face him just then. There was something I had to do first.

Struggling to my feet, I limped over to the phone and picked it up, then dialed. A few minutes later, I was put through to the person I wanted.

"Tawnia? Did the paper ever do a story on someone called Nadia Stegner?"

I know, I know. Not much by my usual standard of greeting, but I couldn't help that. I didn't have time to be polite.

I heard Tawnia groan on the other end of the line. "_Face_. Did you have to bring that up right now? I just started lunch."

"I'll take that as a _yes_. What can you tell me about her?"

There was a short pause, then Tawnia said, "Alright. Hold on."

I held for about three minutes before she came back on the line.

"Got it. Face, are you sure you want to hear this?"

Not really. I wanted to curl up somewhere and forget this whole thing had ever happened, but somehow I didn't think that was going to be an option.

"Tell me."

"Nadia Stegner, died age fifteen. Cause of death..." She trailed off.

"What?"

"Face, do you really have to know? I mean, do you really have to know right this second? When I'm about to eat a hamburger?"

"It's important, Tawnia."

A gusty sigh blew down the phone. "Alright. Cause of death, dissection."

"_Dissection_? As in laboratory?"

"No. I don't think there's an exact word for what happened to her; dissection was just the closest they could come to it. There were too many pieces of her for it to really qualify as dismemberment."

"What did happen to her?" I demanded. Tawnia's digestion be damned; I was not going to let go of this point.

"She was tied to a timber slicer. It was like one of those things you see in cartoons, you know? Only this time it was for real. That poor girl was sliced and chopped into cubes. It took the authorities two hours just to put enough of her together to identify."

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine.

"So Decker wasn't playing games?" I said. That had been my last, rather futile hope. "Nadia really is dead?"

"Face, she died two years ago. And what's Decker got to do with it anyway? Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine." That was a lie. I wasn't sure we'd ever be fine again; Hannibal still seemed to be tiptoeing around me and I still couldn't figure out whether or not he believed me, or thought I was a liar, or crazy. I wasn't sure which of the two latter scenarios I'd prefer. "Thanks Tawnia. I owe you one."

"Just give me first refusal on whatever this story is and we'll call it even."

I grinned – _really_ grinned – for the first time in what felt like forever. "You got it. Ciao."

The grin didn't last much after I put the phone down. The fact that the paper's account of Nadia's death coincided neatly with Decker's theory of events didn't do much to ease my mind.

Three days passed, during which Hannibal...well, he didn't quite _avoid_ me, but he seemed a little reluctant to be pinned down for any kind of discussion about what I'd been through.

On the fourth day, a package arrived in the mail. Since there was no name on it and I was bored, I tore the paper off to reveal a video with no label and a curt note in Decker's handwriting:

_Tell Peck he doesn't have to worry about this happening again; I found the one behind it and took care of her._

_PS: Contact me again, Smith, and all bets are off._

For a long moment, I just gaped at the message. I didn't even notice the PS until much later; one word had fired itself off the page and into my brain.

_Her_?

It had never entered my head that the Voyeur could be a woman. I guess if Amy were still around to witness my reaction, she'd start whining about sexism. In a way (and unlike the five thousand or so _other_ times we'd had to put up with her whining about sexism) she might have a point; if women can claim equal rights with men in terms of jobs and pay, then they can claim it for being sick, sadistic serial killers as well...if you can call that a right. Equality doesn't just cover the nice bits, no matter how many feminists think it does.

We sat down to watch that video together, me and Hannibal. I wasn't sure I wanted to, if I'm honest, but part of me had to. Part of me had to have some proof that it really had happened, that it hadn't been some kind of hideous dream.

Everything panned out exactly as I'd told Hannibal, until we got to the timber slicer. Some of that matched my description; I watched myself as I darted around that machine, fumbling at straps, cables, controls, just like I remembered doing back in the building. There was only one small difference.

The slicer wasn't running. It was covered with cobwebs, half rusted away, just like Decker had told me.

Hannibal paused the tape and turned to look at me, not saying a word.

I shook my head very slowly. "Hannibal...it was going. I _swear_ it was going."

He turned the VCR off. "Face..."

"It _was,_" I interrupted. "I'm...I don't get it. Maybe someone edited the tape." I grabbed the remote from him and set the tape going again, fast-forwarding it, rewinding it and then pausing it and playing it through frame by frame.

"Face," Hannibal said again, more gently this time. Reaching out, he retrieved the remote and stopped the tape. "There's nobody else."

"But..." My voice, usually my best ally, abandoned me. "Hannibal, I'm _not_ crazy. That thing was going. She—Nadia was there."

I made another grab for the remote, but Hannibal placed it out of reach and caught hold of my shoulders when I tried to go after it.

"_Face_." He spoke in a low voice, staring at me, and I would have given anything to know what was going on inside his head just then. "I believe you."

"You're just saying that."

"I never just say anything," Hannibal reminded me. "Look."

He fast-forwarded the video to the part where we met Decker in the water room. Decker and I were clear, or as clear as pictures ever got on something like this.

Nadia, on the other hand, was still nowhere to be seen.

"If you hallucinated her and her conversation, then so did Decker. If you'd been alone, I might find it harder to swallow, but Decker?" He shook his head. "No. If he hadn't been able to see her, he would have said something. It's just..." Hannibal's voice tailed off.

I nodded. "Yeah. I know. Nuts."

He grinned. "Well, I was going to say _weird_, or maybe _unnerving_, but we can go with _nuts_ if you'd rather." The grin disappeared and he said, "Face, what would you say to getting away from this place for a while? Like out of the country for a vacation?"

I perked up a little. Hannibal doesn't splurge on his men often, but he never stints on vacations. He likes luxury retreats almost as much as I do.

"Where were you thinking? Rio?"

"Actually, I was thinking somewhere a little further afield," Hannibal answered.

I perked further, hardly daring to hope.

"Europe?" I asked. Visions of me in Paris with a beautiful French woman on my arm danced through my mind. It was a big improvement over some of the images that had been dancing through it before, let me tell you.

"Actually, I was thinking of somewhere down under."

It was at this point that my jaw hit the ground.

"_Australia_?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Well, I've always wanted to go there. Murdock's happy wherever we go and BA'll come around to it as soon as he, well, comes around. And think of the cultural experiences you can impress women with, talking about kangaroos, the Sydney Opera House, and...well, kangaroos," he finished, somewhat lamely.

I hesitated before answering. Part of me was a little reluctant – after what had happened the last time I left the apartment, I didn't much like going down the grocery store, much less halfway around the world – but that part of me was quickly squashed by a much larger part, the part which wanted to be able to impress women like he said.

Besides, I'd be surrounded by the Team. It would be what Hannibal said; a nice, relaxing vacation. What could _possibly_ go wrong?

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><p><strong>Sorry it's a little short, but I couldn't finish this story without going into the Team's reactions ;) Thanks to everyone who followed and reviewed this (and a belated Happy Christmas!)<strong>

**There will be a new one up, although I'm not sure when...probably early to mid-January. As for the type of story, I'll leave the voting poll open for another week ;) In the meantime, hope you liked this final chapter and if you read, please review!**


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